Musikistrumenten – Museum.

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• Musikistrumenten – Museum.

A collection of 3500 musical instruments from the 16th century to the present day, is in display in this museum located at Berlin’s Kulturforum (Culture Forum), behind the gleaming gold Philharmonic building.

Visitors can experience the tones of these treasures and find out their histories at listening stations and multimedia terminals. Also housed here are a specialized library, and a workshop where instruments are restored. Tours of the collection are given on Thursdays at 6pm, and at 11am on Saturdays, ending with a performance at noon on the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ, the largest of its kind in Europe. On frequent Sundays at 11am, the Museum of Musical Instruments presents “Early Music – Live” a concert series performed on original instruments.

The museum’s SIM-Café offers warm meals, cold drinks, and a place to relax.

• Address: Tiergartenstr. 1, (Eingang Ben-Gurion-Straße)

10785 Berlin

• Phone: 030 25 48 11 78

• Internet: www.mim-berlin.de

• Opening Hours: Tue, Wed and Fri 9-17, Thu 9-22, Sat-Sun 10-17

• Admission Fee: 4,- EUR, red. 2,­ EUR

• Guided Tours: Guided tours every Thu at 6pm and Sat at 11am (2,- Euro)

• Akademie der Künste

The Akademie der Künste is the oldest and most prestigious cultural institution in Germany. As a public corporation, it has a federal arts advisory function with a mission to support and foster the Arts. Today’s glass-facade building designed by Stuttgart architect Günter Behnisch was re-located on its original site, the Pariser Platz.

Its prestigious members have included Wolfgang von Goethe, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Berthold Brecht and Max Liebermann, who headed the institution in the 1920s when the Academy developed its Literature section. Like many other Berlin institutions during the Cold War it developed two branches its western and the eastern equivalent.

The German Academy of Arts was founded on the Robert-Koch-Straße in East Berlin in 1950 and West Berlin responded with the West Berlin Academy of Arts in 1954 housed in the Hanseatenweg in Tiergarten.

• Address: Hanseatenweg 10 (10557 Tiergarten) and Pariser Platz 4 (10117 Mitte)

10557 Berlin

• Phone: 030 20 05 72 00 0

• Internet: www.adk.de

• Opening Hours: Tue-Sun 11-20

• Museumsinsel

Berlin’s Museumsinsel (Museum Island) is a unique ensemble of five museums, including the Pergamon Museum - built the small island in Berlin’s Spree River between 1824 and 1930. A cultural and architectural monument of great significance it was awarded UNESCO World Heritage Status in 1999. Berlin’s own Acropolis of the arts is considered unique because it illustrates the evolution of modern museum design over the course of the 20th century and its collections span six thousand years of human artistic endeavour.

The King Friedrich Wilhelm’s (1840-1861) developed this monument whit a romantic vision of a refuge of the arts and sciences similar to the Forum of ancient Rome. Following 1830´s Altes Museum, Friedrich Wilhelm IV commissioned the Neues Museum in 1859 to house the Egyptian and prehistoric collections.

The Alte Nationalgalerie followed in 1876, built by Johann Heinrich Strack, as an elevated temple of antiquity for 19th century German and European painting collections. It reopened in 2001, with works from Monet, Manet, Renoir and Caspar David Friedrich. The Baroque Bode Museum (1904), originally Kaiser Friedrich’s Museum for European Renaissance art was named after its first director, Wilhelm von Bode in 1956. Renowned for its sculpture collection and Museum of Byzantine Art, finally reopened in 2006 after a five and a half years’ renovation.

All the museums:

• Address: Museumsinsel

10178 Berlin

• Phone: 030 20 90 55 77

• Internet: www.smb.museum

• Opening Hours: Tue-Sun 10-18, Thu 10-22

• Admission Fee: 8,- Euro, red. 4,- Euro

• Guided Tours: Guided tours by arrangement (phone: 030 2 66 36 66)

• Reichstag

Following German reunification on October 3, 1990 the Bundestag (German Federal Parliament) decided, one year later, to make the Reichstag the seat of Parliament in Berlin, the restored capital of reunited Germany.The Reichstag building was completed in 1894 following German national unity and the establishment of the German Reich in 1871.The Reichstag suffered damage and destruction over the course of the 20th century.

Visitor highlights include a lift ride to the top of the building to a large viewing terrace for the breathtaking views of Tiergarten, the dome and the mirror cylinder at the centre. The Lift to the cupola is from 8am -10pm and the viewing platform area is open until midnight.

• Address: Platz der Republik 1

10557 Berlin

• Phone: 030 22 73 21 52

• Opening Hours: daily 8-24

• Admission Fee: Admission free

• Guided Tours: by arrangement

• Architect: Paul Wallot

• Style: renaissance, baroque and classizism.

• The Branderburg Gate (Die Branderburger Tor).

The Brandenburg Gate is one of Berlin’s most important monuments – a landmark and symbol all in one with over two hundred years of history. It was here that on June 12, 1987, Ronald Regan issued his stern command to his cold war adversary admonishing him with the words: “Mr. Gorbachov – tear down this wall!”

The Brandenburg Gate was erected between 1788 and 1791 according to designs by Carl Gotthard Langhans whose vision was inspired by the Propyläen in Athens’ Acropolis.

During WWII the Brandenburg Gate was damaged but not destroyed by allied bombing. When visiting the monument and before crossing over to the other side, the Raum der Stille (Room of Silence) situated on the north wing provides a restful place for a short break.

The Berliner Dom

The Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), completed in 1905, is Berlin’s largest and most important Protestant church as well as the sepulchre of the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty. First built in 1465 as a parish church on the Spree River it was only finally completed in 1905 under the last German Kaiser -Wilhelm II. Damaged during the Second World War it remained closed during the GDR years and reopened after restoration in 1993.

Known as the Hohenzollern family tomb, over ninety sarcophagi and tombs are on display including those of the Prussian Kings – Frederick I and Sophie Charlotte, by Andreas Schlüter, impressively

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