in late august i had the chance to visit my cousin in berlin. usually, when visiting berlin, i never really was enamoured by this city ( i guess bad weather, and close to no time to do any exploring were the main aspects of me never falling in love with this city ), but this time berlin showed me a side that was actually quite lovely. my cousin lives in berlin-charlottenburg, which is a city district that reminds me of wiesbaden, so basically a lot of wilhelminian styled houses and rues, parks and generally it felt really laid-back. on the first day i had a lot of time on my own to spent before i went to my cousin's workplace in the evening, so i decided to do a lot of walking to get to know more of this area. i went to see the kaiser wilhelm memorial church & walked the whole ku'damm avenue ( short for kurfürstendamm ), and i explored side alleys and revisited a few sights. on the second day we decided to visit the park of charlottenburg palace - a big palais situated directly in the middle of berlin - one of my highlights of the visit. this first post of my berlin adventure covers those details of my visit.
the lietzensee park is also situated directly in charlottenburg and it's a little solitude inbetween the hectic berlin life.
a common sight in berlin are these blue ( and sometimes pink ) pipes. they are build whenever there is a construction side around to pump up the subterranean water ( berlin was built on sandy ground and it could mean that the construction sites can drop if water is still underground. )
buildings on ernst-reuter-platz. my cousin works here in a little copy shop. it's part of the campus charlottenburg where quite a lot of berlin's universities are situated.
the renaissance theatre. it's the only art deco theatre which is still in its original state in all of europe.
remains of the mosaic ceiling in the kaiser wilhelm memorial church. this church was bombed out in world war 2 and was never really built up in its full glory again, so now it stands as a memorial for the world war 2. it's a really beautiful ruin and the mosaics are seriously the best thing about it. they build a new church construction next to the ruin ( very brutalist architecture - in my eyes ), but the clash of those extremes are still interesting to look at.
the picture shows a procession of the latest hohenzollern dynasty.
this is the new church right next to the ruin.
theatre of the west. it's a really beautiful building and inside it's really luxurious. a few years ago i've been inside to see the dance of the vampires and it was the perfect place for this musical.
near one of the high lines of berlin
the courtyard at the place where my cousin lives in.
the next day we decided to have a look at the kadewe ( kaufhaus des westens - a big luxurious shopping mall - very famous in berlin ). i was mainly interested in the food section ( which was THE BEST ), but we also looked at a few other ones like the toy sections. apparently monchhichis are in again - which is just really adorable.
the whole interior of the food section was inspired by turn of the century architecture. i loved it.
cakes, and baked goodies. a feast for the eyes.
underground station wittenbergplatz. sometimes i think it's funny that i can spy art nouveau and art deco buildings so easily and am so attracted to them. it is a really beautiful station, probably one of my favourites in whole berlin.
the inside with art nouveau advertisements.
an art installation ( a strange one at that! ) underground. sleep, forever sleepy of sleep.
and then we made our way to charlottenburg palace. of course, as all old and huge buildings in germany, it was under construction. therefore it kind of disturbed the whole view a bit, but it was nonetheless pretty amazing. we didn't went inside ( something i'd like to do in the future ), but directly went around it to have a walk through the park.
the plaza in front of the building was surrounded with more little palaces and housed art museums. this building houses the scharf-gerstenberg collection and on the other side of the avenue is the berggruen collection.
splendid gold alloyings.
there was an exhibition about the women of the hohenzollern dynasty shaping the fate of prussia ( i would've LOVED it to have a look at it, but my cousin wasn't very interested, unfortunately ).
strange figurines on the roof.
the gardens were the epitome of baroque garden architecture.
the english landscape part of the park.
sparrows of berlin. they are surely the most cheeky and bold i've ever had the pleasure to meet.
mausoleum for queen luise of mecklenburg-strelitz. ( more on wikipedia )
a beautiful belvedere in charlottenburg's palace garden.
i guess the bridge is one of the most popular places in the park, probably perfect for couples.
and a view onto the river spree.
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