12) Germany - Berlin - Other sketches - late August 2017

Domkirche - Berlin Cathedral

 This is the Domkirche - the late baroque masterpiece which houses the tombs of the Hohenzollern Kings of Prussia and Kaisers of the German Empire. I sketched it from the side of the Spree.

Marienkirche - St. Mary's Church

The Marienkirche is one of the oldest churches in East Central Berlin, and it's not without its own beauty.  It sits to the side of a square, at the end of which is the Rathus, or town hall, behind a very ornate fountain.

Brandenburg Gate

 An iconic image of Berlin. Its so easy now to cross from East to West Berlin that it's difficult to visualise that this place was the symbol of the Cold War once upon a time.

Mozart - Haydn - Beethoven Memorial - Tiergarten

 If you walk west through the Brandenburg Gate, and keep walking, you'll eventually come to the Siegsaule - pictured below. The thing is, though, that the Siegsaule is so tall, that you think it's a lot closer than it is. I was, after walking from the Brandenburg Gate to the Siegsaule, knackered. Even after resting to make the sketch, I was soon knackered walking back. This time though I walked through the Tiergarten, the park which runs alongside the road. I found this charming memorial to three great composers, and sat down on a bench beside it and made this sketch to give me a bit more recovery time.

Altes Museum - Museum Island

 Back to Museum Island. I was waiting for the airport bus and made this sketch while I did so. A group of passers by liked it, and the little Italian guy who was selling ice creams by the side of the road even asked me if he could take a photo of it. He didn't give me a free ice cream, though.

Berlin Rathaus

 This is the aforementioned Rathaus. It's not a great sketch this, although to be fair the scanner does seem to have exaggerated the slight sland to the tower which my sketch had (the original building is as straight as a dye, I hasten to add) I was intrigued because to me this looks very like a German cousin of the contemporary Cardiff Pierhead building. Did the architect have a bike?

Siegsaule - West Berlin

The Siegsaule. Literally the Victory column, which was built to commemorate the Prussian victories over Denmark, Austria and then France in the second half of the 19th century, which led to the unification of Germany in 1871.

11) Germany - Berlin - late August 2017 - Required elements

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.

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.

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.

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.

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-

.