Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [88]
The Berggruen ticket is also good for same-day admission to the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg (Map; 3435 7315; www.smb.museum/ssg; Schlossstrasse 70; adult/concession/under 16yr €8/4/free, last 4hr Thu free; 10am-6pm Tue-Sun), and vice versa. Open since 2008, this stellar museum trains the spotlight on surrealist artists with an impressive body of works by Magritte, Max Ernst, Dalí, Dubuffet and their 18th-century precursors such as Goya and Piranesi. (If you have time, you can also use the ticket to visit the Museum für Fotografie/Helmut Newton Sammlung, Click here, on the same day.)
While in the neighbourhood, also pop by the Bröhan Museum ( 3269 0600; www.broehan-museum.de; Schlossstrasse 1a; adult/concession €6/4; 10am-6pm Tue-Sun), which displays an outstanding collection of furniture and decorative objects from the art-nouveau, art-deco and Functionalism periods (1889–1939).
KURFÜRSTENDAMM & AROUND
The 3.5km-long Kurfürstendamm (Ku’damm for short) is a ribbon of commerce that began as a bridle path to the royal hunting lodge in the Grunewald forest. In the early 1870s, Bismarck had it widened, paved and lined with fancy residential buildings, apparently in an attempt to one-up the French and their Champs-Elysée.
On Breitscheidplatz, the boulevard’s eastern terminus, the bombed-out tower of the landmark Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche (Emperor-William-Memorial-Church; Map; admission free; 9am-7pm) serves as an antiwar memorial, standing quiet and dignified amid the roar. Built in 1895, it was once a real beauty as you’ll be able to tell from the before-and-after pictures in the memorial hall on the ground floor. Also duck into the adjacent octagonal hall of worship, added in 1961, to admire its midnight-blue glass walls and giant floating Jesus.
Near the church, an exotic Elephant Gate leads inside the Berlin Zoo (Map; 254 010; enter on Hardenbergplatz or on Budapester Strasse; adult/student/child zoo or aquarium €12/9/6, zoo & aquarium €18/14/9; 9am-7pm mid-Mar–mid-Oct, 9am-6pm mid-Sep–mid-Oct, 9am-5pm mid-Oct–mid-Mar), Germany’s oldest animal park. Some 14,000 furry, feathered and flippered creatures from all continents, 1500 species in total, make their home here. Knut, the polar bear born at the zoo in 2006, and Bao Bao, a giant panda from China, are among the biggest celebrities, but cheeky orang-utans, endangered rhinos and playful penguins are also perennial crowd pleasers. At the adjacent Aquarium (Map; Budapester Strasse 32; adult/student/child €12/9/6, zoo & aquarium €18/14/9; 9am-6pm) dancing jelly fish, iridescent poison frogs and real-life Nemo clownfish should thrill even the most PlayStation-jaded youngsters.
Entertainment for grown-ups awaits at the Museum für Fotografie/Helmut Newton Sammlung (Museum of Photography; Map; 3186 4825; Jebensstrasse 2; adult/concession/under 16yr €8/4/free, last 4hr Thu free; 10am-6pm Tue, Wed & Fri-Sun, to 10pm Thu), behind Zoo station. Built as a Prussian officer’s casino and later used as an art library, this imposing neoclassical building now houses changing photography exhibits of international stature upstairs in the Kaisersaal (Emperor’s Hall), a barrel-vaulted banqueting hall. The ground floor is dedicated to the works of Helmut Newton, the Berlin-born enfant terrible of fashion photography. Tickets are also good for same-day admission to the Museum Berggruen (p127 and Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg.
Art fans also flock to the exquisite Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum (Map; 882 5210; Fasanenstrasse 24; adult/concession €5/2.50; 11am-6pm). It presents the works of one of Germany’s greatest women artists, whose social and political awareness lent a tortured power to her work. After losing both her son and grandson on the battlefields of Europe, death and motherhood became recurring themes in her work.
Further west on Ku’damm, the Story of Berlin (Map; 8872 0100; Kurfürstendamm 207-208; adult/concession/family €9.80/8/21; 10am-8pm, last admission & bunker tour 6pm) is a multimedia museum that breaks down 800 years of Berlin history into bite-sized