Next on the itinerary, and the last chance to go anywhere during the long school Summer Holidays, was Berlin. My wife bought me this trip as a Christmas present back in Christmas 2016, and I'd been really looking forward to it. It was another European capital city, which was reason enough, but more than that it was fair to expect that Berlin is one of the great European capitals.
I had two full days and another half day in Berlin, and I found that I did spend most of that time in East Berlin. So let's get to the trams and the river and the bridges.
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| Bode Museum - Museum Island |
Okay - now I didn't actually make a sketch while I was on the river - although I did take a sightseeing trip along the Spree. I have to say that I enjoyed it more than the trip on the Vltava in Prague too. Berlin 's river, the Spree is home to an island which houses five of the world's great museums - hence its name of Museum Island. This is the Bode Museum, at the tip of the island, and is one I made sitting on the opposite bank of the river. It was one of several sketches which passers by stopped to talk about, I'm happy to say.
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| Oberbaumbrucke bridge |
Ah yes. Now, I wouldn't say that the bridges in the centre of the city crossing the Spree are ugly. They're rather nondescript, though, and I was starting to despair of finding a real signature bridge for Berlin, until I found a photo of this, the Oberbaumbrucke, online. This is actually a road and rail bridge, as it carries one line of the U-Bahn, the Berlin underground railway to its ending. You have to go East to the end of the line, mind you, but it's worth it. I mean, let's be honest, this bridge is mad, almost Wagnerian, and I like it very much. It was a burningly hot day, though, and I burned my bald spot while I was painting this.
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| Hackesscher Markt S-Bahn Station |
The Hackescher Markt is a large market in the centre of East Berlin. It's also a rather nice station of the S-Bahn, Berlin's other, rather grander metro system. This was another one which attracted some nice comments, from a group of Spanish people no less, who turned out to know Catral quite well.
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| Hackescher Markt - catching the M6 tram to the hotel |
I'll be honest, I couldn't get much enthusiasm for sketching Berlin's sleek, modern and highly efficient trams - this is the only sketch I made on the spot. This one was done from photos later-
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