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Berlin Picspam
I promised a Berlin post a few days ago, but somehow it kept being delayed... Anyway - I chose a few photos from my trip, including one of the German Ministry of Magic, which I promised I would photograph. Unfortunately I haven't been able to spot either Snape or Gravelius or Kunze, but then I'm a poor Muggle and those magical people know how to hoodwink my kind, don't they.
Der Himmel über Berlin...
I love clouds, what can I say :-).
I also love old buildings, but of course a lot of those were destroyed during World War II. My friend and I stayed in a hotel near the Frankfurter Allee, in an area that used to belong to East Berlin and is rather full of communist-style buildings. They would have been depressingly boring and uniform, huge square blocks, if the Berliners hadn't painted them in lively colours and added clever design details. I took quite a few pictures of tops of buildings whose colours contrasted nicely with the blue sky we had on our third day.
Capitalism triumphant ;-)...
"Kauf dich glücklich" means "buy yourself happy". I guess it would sound a lot more cynical (this, again, is ex-East Berlin) if it weren't the name of an ice-cream parlour *g*.
I didn't see any witches or wizards, but I did find a Hag Mobile :D. Of course it reminded me of Brynhild, though she is far too posh to drive around in a car like that...
I thought this house in Charlottenburg possessed a high degree of Neuschwanstein-ism :-). Very lovely in a nineteenth-century sort of way... Good thing we found this, too, because in spite of all the interesting things to see in Berlin, and the shortness of our trip, we had been shopping shamelessly that morning. (I bought shoes. Ahem.)
Another romantic house. This is the kind of architecture I associate with Germany, somehow. I wish I could say that this is the Ministry of Magic, but sadly it isn't.
Head of a Princess
To prove that I did do other things than shop and look for the Zaubereiministerium, I want to introduce you to one of the daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Berlin's Egyptian Museum (currently housed in the Altes Museum) has a truly wonderful collection with particularly fine Amarna style pieces. Ever since I was little I have been fascinated with Ancient Egypt, and one of my favourite books as a teenager had Nefertiti as the main character.
The Amarna style (called after el-Amarna, the modern name for the place where Akhetaton, Akhenaten's capital city, used to be) is very different from any Egyptian art that came before or after. It is more personal, more intimate, more visionary. There are statues of the pharao and his queen holding hands, and bas-reliefs showing the couple kissing their children - they are unique moments in the history of pharaonic art. The people portrayed are also individualised and recognisable. It's fascinating, and I find it both touching and beautiful. Even if I hadn't enjoyed anything else in Berlin, seeing these Amarna pieces would have made the trip worthwhile.
Le grand Jules
I met another old acquaintance in the Altes Museum: good old Julius Caesar. This portrait bust is "utterly too-too", I think ;P. And of course it's also first rate reference material for War in Gaul.
And then finally, the Ministerium... I do think it's this building, but it wasn't easy to determine, as the Karl-Marx-Allee is full of nearly identical ones. The kitchen shop on the ground floor is real, as far as I can make out, and serves to make the Ministerium inconspicuous. Of course you can't see that the old Bonn Ministerium has been glued to it, but it's definitely there!
Der Himmel über Berlin...
I love clouds, what can I say :-).
I also love old buildings, but of course a lot of those were destroyed during World War II. My friend and I stayed in a hotel near the Frankfurter Allee, in an area that used to belong to East Berlin and is rather full of communist-style buildings. They would have been depressingly boring and uniform, huge square blocks, if the Berliners hadn't painted them in lively colours and added clever design details. I took quite a few pictures of tops of buildings whose colours contrasted nicely with the blue sky we had on our third day.
Capitalism triumphant ;-)...
"Kauf dich glücklich" means "buy yourself happy". I guess it would sound a lot more cynical (this, again, is ex-East Berlin) if it weren't the name of an ice-cream parlour *g*.
I didn't see any witches or wizards, but I did find a Hag Mobile :D. Of course it reminded me of Brynhild, though she is far too posh to drive around in a car like that...
I thought this house in Charlottenburg possessed a high degree of Neuschwanstein-ism :-). Very lovely in a nineteenth-century sort of way... Good thing we found this, too, because in spite of all the interesting things to see in Berlin, and the shortness of our trip, we had been shopping shamelessly that morning. (I bought shoes. Ahem.)
Another romantic house. This is the kind of architecture I associate with Germany, somehow. I wish I could say that this is the Ministry of Magic, but sadly it isn't.
Head of a Princess
To prove that I did do other things than shop and look for the Zaubereiministerium, I want to introduce you to one of the daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Berlin's Egyptian Museum (currently housed in the Altes Museum) has a truly wonderful collection with particularly fine Amarna style pieces. Ever since I was little I have been fascinated with Ancient Egypt, and one of my favourite books as a teenager had Nefertiti as the main character.
The Amarna style (called after el-Amarna, the modern name for the place where Akhetaton, Akhenaten's capital city, used to be) is very different from any Egyptian art that came before or after. It is more personal, more intimate, more visionary. There are statues of the pharao and his queen holding hands, and bas-reliefs showing the couple kissing their children - they are unique moments in the history of pharaonic art. The people portrayed are also individualised and recognisable. It's fascinating, and I find it both touching and beautiful. Even if I hadn't enjoyed anything else in Berlin, seeing these Amarna pieces would have made the trip worthwhile.
Le grand Jules
I met another old acquaintance in the Altes Museum: good old Julius Caesar. This portrait bust is "utterly too-too", I think ;P. And of course it's also first rate reference material for War in Gaul.
And then finally, the Ministerium... I do think it's this building, but it wasn't easy to determine, as the Karl-Marx-Allee is full of nearly identical ones. The kitchen shop on the ground floor is real, as far as I can make out, and serves to make the Ministerium inconspicuous. Of course you can't see that the old Bonn Ministerium has been glued to it, but it's definitely there!