A history, modernism and quirkiness day today. First place for the day was the Berlin Wall Museum. While nearly all of the original wall was demolished, some small sections remain protected. The open air museum had lots of very informative and interesting displays, recordings and videos of what it was like when the wall was in place.

The escape attempts ranged from opportunistic, meticulously planned to desperate – with many ending in tragedy. The wall basically sliced neighbourhoods, families and transport networks apart. Two metro train lines ran from West Berlin under East Berlin and back to West Berlin with the stations in between closed off and guarded by East German police.

We then visited the Reichstag which is the German Parliament building. Originally built in 1894, it was completely renovated and a new glass dome constructed on top starting in 1994. Mamfa marvelled at the impressive architecture and engineering of the dome such that the helical pedestrian ramps appear to float around the dome.

We also visited the Topography of Terror open air museum with another section of the wall and a lot of displays about the rise of the Nazis and then the takeover of the SS in the new East Germany behind the Wall.

Along the way, we found an excellent art exhibition inside a 18m high by 32m diameter rotunda. It was a digitised version of a panoramic painting the artist had done of a scene from the 1980s that shows both sides of the wall from the viewpoint of a building on the west side. It was at 1:1 scale and with the curved wall it really felt like you were in the scene.

There was also a photo of a painting the artist did on the actual Berlin wall that makes the wall disappear. In the image below, only the very top of the church and the bridge are real – the rest is a painting on the concrete wall behind the bridge.

We then checked out the very quirky Monsterkabinett. It had crazy looking mechanical monsters controlled with a huge amount of electronics and accompanied by loud techno music as they played music, tried to scare people and blew their own heads off. Very impressive but weird contraptions in a show that was a lot of fun. No photos allowed during the show so those below are the signs outside.

Final stop for the day was Alexanderplatz with a few landmarks sculptures and buildings.

Mamfa finished “Resurrection Walk” by Michael Connelly – 4 stars

This day in sporting history (22 June)

1874 Game of lawn tennis introduced by Welsh Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, introducing a rubber ball to bounce on grass