Brandenburg Gate, with the Goddess of Peace on top and Mars 'sheathing his sword'. Can you believe that Napoleon took this statue to the Louvre in Paris in 1806?! The Prussians defeated Napoleon and got it back in 1813 though.
The U.S. Embassy is just to the right of the kids (this is where Uncle Marc would work if you guys got lucky enough to get Germany).
Memorial to the murdered Jews who were killed during WWII - the first formal, German government-sponsored Holocaust memorial. There are 2,711 gravestone like pillars, and no matter where you are in the memorial the exit always appears to be up.
(Just a side note ... We learned from Rick Steves that these pillars are chemically coated for easy removal of graffiti - ironically this chemical coating was "developed by a subsidiary of the former IG Farben group - the company infamous for supplying the Zyklon B gas used in Nazi death camps".)
We then walked down Unter den Linden boulevard, which was a grand boulevard in the 'good ol' days'.
The notorious Nazi book burning.
Memorial in memory of the 20,000 books that were burned under Hitlers rein. If you look close enough you can see empty white bookshelves - these bookcases go all the way around the room below. Good thing the kids have seen Indian Jones so we could somewhat explain this memorial to them :)
Just in front of this memorial is the Humboldt University seen HERE
Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom)
More pictures of this Cathedral are found HERE. We paid extra so we could walk around the entire dome. It was a great view and the stairs were perfect with getting some of the kids energy out.
Checkpoint Charle
Part of the Berlin Wall
Some of the items not pictured here that we saw include:
*Memorial to Politicians who opposed Hitler
*Berlin Wall Victims Memorial
*Pariser Platz (where Brandenburg Gate is located)
*Hotel Adlon - where Michael Jackson dangled his baby over the balcony
*Ghost Subway stations - these stations were un-used for 28 years - they still have the old green tiles and some of the same signs posted ... it was really interesting!!
*The Neue Wache (New Guardhouse) where a replica of Kathe Kollwits stautue is (Mother of Her Dead Son) - it marks the tomb of Germany's unknown soldier and the unknown concentration camp victim.
Some of the things we want to go back and do:
*German History Museum
*Pergamon Museum
*Neues Museum & Egyptian Collection
... who am I kidding, there is so much more we want to see it's ridiculous to list them all. It's like visiting Washington D.C., it requires a couple of visits to see everything you want to see and then you still haven't seen everything.
