Prince Eugene's Belvedere

The Upper Belvedere in Vienna, 28 May 2026

The high reputation of Prince Eugene [of Savoy] has endured over the centuries, as has his personal stamp on Vienna with his summer and winter residences being two baroque jewels of the city. His city palais on the Himmelpfortgasse was built by both Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lukas von Hildebrand. The building, which has a twelve-bay baroque façade, also has an exquisite interior, including an extraordinary staircase, stone sculptures and frescoes. The building currently hosts the Austrian Finance Ministry.

Eugene's most famous residence was the Belvedere, a historic complex of two palaces and beautiful baroque gardens, just outside the city walls. Johann Lukas von Hildebrand designed and built the Lower and Upper Belvedere between 1712 and 1723. One of Europe's standout baroque landmarks, it is listed together with the rest of Vienna city centre as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Lower Belvedere, with its beautiful Hall of Mirrors, was the day. to-day summer home of Prince Eugene, while the Upper Belvedere was conceived with prestige and display in mind, positioned on a rise overlooking the middle of the capital with copper roofs. They were designed to resemble Turkish tents, an allusion to Eugene's victories over the Ottomans. The sumptuous grandeur of the interior includes Herculean figures supporting the vaulted ceiling of the Sala Terrena and the two-storey-high Marble Hall with its ornately painted ceiling.

The gardens between the Lower and Upper Belvedere are a baroque masterpiece in their own right and look down towards Fischer von Erlach's baroque Karlskirche, with its oversized flanking columns. Eugene had an intense interest in horticulture and nature, seeking out rarities and abnormalities. His menagerie was the second largest in Europe after that of King Louis XIV, numbering 43 species of mammals and 67 species of birds, including 'unheard of' species of the time. Eugene was also an avid collector of books and developed friendships with the leading international authors and thinkers of the age, including Gottfried Leibnitz, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles-Louis Montesquieu. More than 15,000 books formed part of a world-class collection together with hundreds of manuscripts and prints, described as follows by Rousseau: 'The Prince's library is very extensive and consists of exceptionally fine books beautifully bound. But what is more remarkable is that there is scarcely a book in it that the Prince has not read or at least looked through. It is difficult to believe that a man who almost alone carries such a public burden for all Europe, who is Field-Marshall and the Emperor's Prime Minister, can find the time to read almost as much as someone who has nothing else to do'

- Angus Robertson, The Crossroads of Civilisation: A History of Vienna, New York, 2022, p.37-8.

Men debate the prettiest ankles in all of Europe

The Prettiest Ankles.

A man who has travelled in every part of Europe expressed the opinion that the prettiest ankles are to be found in Genoa, and the least shapely in Prague. “In Italy you do not find the atrocity of the silk stocking with a cotton foot and top,” he observed. “Englishwomen spoil the appearance of their usually pretty feet not by the shoes they wear, which are in excellent taste, but because they will not pay the price for all-silk stockings. They wear stockings with horrible patches appearing above the ankles, thus destroying completely the beauty of the foot. In Italy, and especially in Genoa, women wear good stockings, dainty high-heeled shoes, in which they look charming. In Prague, where German customs survive, women wear light-coloured woollen stockings on legs that ought to be made as inconspicuous as possible.” A shoemaker stated that whereas several years ago the shoe most constantly in demand was a five, it is now a six, or a six and a half. Sevens are frequently asked for. Mr. Edouard van Waeyenberge, writing in a London paper from Weston-super-Mare, suggests that Englishwomen have the slimmest ankles in the world. ‘I wandered about France for ten years,” he writes. “I visited Arles, which has a great reputation among artists for beautiful women. I have seen more beautiful ankles among Englishwomen than ever I saw on the Continent.” “Where is the traveller, who after wandering about England, does not admit that there are here too many beautiful women for one’s peace of mind?” An artist pointed out to the same paper that slim ankles have not always been the artist’s ideal of beauty. “Go in to the sculpture section of the British Museum and look at Aphrodite entering her bath.” he said. “A beautiful figure, assuredly. But slim ankles? No! In this case the ankles are decidedly thick and shapeless. In Greek and Roman sculpture the feet are often concealed by draperies; but where they are revealed it is rare to find an ankle which, while in proportion, is also slim and shapely, as we understand shapeliness to-day".

- 'Woman's World' column, Dominion, 22 January 1923, p.2

Belitsa Bear Sanctuary

On my recent Intrepid tour through Bulgaria one highlight was several hours spent at the Belitsa Bear Sanctuary on the edge of the Rila National Park, some two-and-a-half hours south of the capital Sofia. The charitable trust that established the sanctuary received support from veteran animal rights campaigner Brigitte Bardot, and has been housing rescued bears from across Eastern Europe as more countries ban the cruel practice of 'dancing' bears. Visitors are left with no illusions of how painful and inhumane the centuries-old training process is, thanks to an introductory video that is particularly hard to watch. But once you venture out onto the well-fenced mountainside bear habitat it's a relief to see these formerly imprisoned animals now have a safe and stimulating natural environment in which to live out their retirement.

The bears are sociable but not all bears get along, so there are several separate large enclosures in which groups can cohabit. There's an hourly tour with well-informed Bulgarian guides but you can also wander the trails yourself, which is what I did for most of the visit. This resulted in several wonderfully peaceful close encounters with the bears as little as five metres away through the thankfully sturdy fences. Irrespective of the heft of the barriers, the bears were not in the least bit interested in me as I took their picture. The video below shows one enclosure pair, with the second bear having been rescued after a fight with an aggressive male that resulted in the medical amputation of her forepaw. Despite this, she is able to get around the mountainside quite well, if not speedily, hunting down the food the keepers secrete around the enclosures to keep the occupants active and engaged.

Green-eyed girl

Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 24 May 2019

Kotor

The Sea Gate at Kotor, Montenegro (1555)

A flying round-trip from London to Amsterdam, 1922

A typical Daimler Airway flight to Holland and return [in 1922] began with a drive down from London to Croydon of some forty-five minutes. There the eight passengers would file aboard and settle themselves in the comfortable, upholstered seats with the aid of a steward, a Daimler innovation. The engine was then started, the chocks withdrawn and the plane taxied to the downwind end of the field. Taking off at about 12.50[pm] the pilot might climb to between 2,000 and 6,000 feet depending on the weather over the Channel. If the sun was shining and it was late spring or summer, the cabin was often hot enough that shirtsleeves were comfortable. About an hour after take-off the Dover-Calais crossing would be made. Upon reaching the French shore, the pilot turned north-east up the coast for Rotterdam, landing there at 15.30. Ten minutes sufficed to drop off four passengers and take the air again for Amsterdam which was reached at 16.00 hours. Take-off from Amsterdam was at 17.20 and Croydon was reached again at 20.30. Daimler handled passengers' baggage, except for Customs, so the flight was usually uneventful. On the two occasions of forced landings, Dutch beaches were used with indifferent results.

- Robin Higham, Britain's Imperial Air Routes 1918 to 1939, London, 1960, p.59.

Zadar sunset

Sunset in the historic walled Adriatic seaside town of Zadar in Croatia, taken on 7 June 2015.

A week in Dalmatia: 2. Korčula

Following an exciting stay in Dubrovnik, the next stop on my eight-day Intrepid tour was the island port of Korčula, another Dalmatian maritime settlement boasting a fine location and a historic setting. But first we had a short journey north from Dubrovnik via minibus. This took us over the impressive city bridge and an hour's drive north around the winding coast to a short pause for lunch at the medieval settlement of Ston. Here we admired from a distance the spectacular mountain overlooking the town, and specifically its distinctive fortifications defending its salt pans, which were a hugely lucrative source of income. Originally more than 7km long, currently 5.5km remains of the 15th century walls. Our next pause for refreshments was in the pleasingly cool wine cellars at Matusko Wines on the outskirts of the village of Potomje, on the 65km-long Pelješac peninsula, a narrow finger of land hugging the Adriatic coast. In a very pleasant wine-tasting stop, we particularly enjoyed Matusko's Pošip whites and its prestigious Dingač reds.

Walls at Ston

Matusko Wines, Potomje

Then it was time for a ride across the narrow 2km straight from the mainland to Korčula itself. (It's pronounced 'Kor-chula', roughly). For centuries the 46km-long island of Korčula was a vibrant part of the Adriatic's trade network, and it passed between numerous different owners. Thanks to its town statute of 1214 the town holds claim to be the first place in the world to have outlawed slavery, and some believe that the famed Venetian explorer Marco Polo was born here, although there's no hard evidence to support this.

A small hired launch took us across in double-quick time, during which time we admired the exploits of two racing windsurfers, who competed to exploit the warm sea breeze. Soon the town appeared in view and we were able to appreciate its beauty from the ideal vantage: from the sea. Perched on a gentle headland rise, the walled town's historic architecture and its nautical heritage are obvious. After docking at the marina and pausing to admire the town walls and the ornamental bridge to the main town gate, which is protected by a proud square tower with crenellated battlements and decorated with a roaring Venetian lion, we entered the town itself.

Windsurfer racing off the mainland

Approaching Korčula from the sea

The gate of Korčula

Old Korčula is compact: a mere 200m from the main gate to the tower at its northern tip. No cars are allowed inside the walls, and there wouldn't be any room for them in any case. Arranged along a central north-south thoroughfare with the St Mark's cathedral square at its heart, Korčula's dwellings are arrayed along herringbone-style side alleys set out cannily to take advantage of the prevailing winds. The alleys on the west side are straight to funnel through the cooling breezes, while the ones on the east side are gently curved to mitigate the effects of the stronger easterly gusts. Around the outside of the old town walls a fine promenade hosts marinas, jetties and plenty of cafe-bars with awnings to shelter customers from the powerful Croatian sunshine.

St Mark's (detail)

The alley I was rooming in

Our first evening was spent in a pleasant restaurant, Adio Mare, near St Mark's, where we sat on the shaded terrace and enjoyed the local fare - particularly the wine. This was rounded off with more drinks in the warm night air on the promenade. It was clearly a straightforward matter to adjust to the Korčula lifestyle! A little before midnight it was finally time to retire to our accommodation for the night, an array of private suites in family homes throughout the town. My host, a Croatian grandmother, spoke only Croatian and German, but this was perfectly sufficient to explain the workings of mein zimmer. (Actually, I had checked in earlier that afternoon - I didn't wake her up at midnight!)

The next morning following breakfast from the busy local supermarket, some of us joined local boat captain Mario on his little motor-launch for a sunny expedition to nearby waters. It was a perfect plan on a day that would reach 33 degrees at its hottest. First stop was the ruins of Majsan on a nearby island, which began their life as a Roman fishing village and later in the 4th century became the site of a monastery that attracted pilgrims as late as the 16th century. Nowadays only the foundations remain to explore, with a cryptic diagram that illustrates a possible layout that's rather a challenge to visualise. Next stop was a stretch of open sea in the channel where Mario anchored the launch and donned scuba fins for a spot of foraging. Soon he emerged from the shallow waters with a selection of sea urchins to sample. I didn't take up the kind offer but most of the others gave the brown, gooey sea urchin paste a try. I did, however, sample Mario's family-made wine, which was rugged and invigorating. Our last stop on the afternoon at sea was the former monastery on the island of Badija, where we enjoyed feeding the tame deer and taking advantage of the cool, clear Adriatic waters. I also took the opportunity to collect some beach glass to add to my collection from Wellington harbour. (For Mario's contact details, see Fish & Fun Korčula). 

Ruins on Majsan

Mario on the lookout for sea urchins

Greedy deer at Badija

Later that afternoon I corrected an omission of my sightseeing in Korčula, making a point of venturing up the cathedral tower in the square to admire the view across the town's red-tiled houses and the craggy cliffs across the strait on the mainland. Then it was time to rendezvous for our big dinner of the trip at the small village of Pupnat about 20 minutes drive into the island's interior. The sleepy village boasts the services of Konoba Mate, a fine, family-run restaurant, where we enjoyed a multi-course meal on the vine-clad outdoor terrace. A fine end to our visit to Korčula! We were only there for a day and a half, but it was a very appealing locale. The next morning we would gather for the earliest of starts for the third part of our journey - to the millionaires' playground of Hvar.

View from the belltower, St Mark's, Korčula

Konoba Mate restaurant, Pupnat

Sunrise over the walls at Korčula

A week in Dalmatia: 1. Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik from the Lovrjenac Fortress

A few weeks ago in June I was lucky enough to spent a week travelling in Croatia on an Intrepid tour with entertaining, like-minded travellers seeking a bit of adventure on the Dalmatian coast. I decided to arrive a day before the tour started to explore solo and get my bearings. So the trip commenced with the obligatory pre-dawn start at my friends' place in London and a walk along near-deserted streets to Purley station for the 5.45am train to Gatwick and the 7.50am Easyjet flight to Dubrovnik.

Gatwick was the usual hubbub of travelling families, hen parties and (most avoidable) stag party crews, and the full flight to Croatia was distinguished by the extra-loud babbling of a dozen or two excitable English folk. It was the first time I've seen passengers stand in the aisle for almost the entire flight, so they could carry on their vital, and rather exuberant, conversations. Naturally, the correct behaviour for air travellers is to sit in their seats, unspeaking and unmoving, for the entire duration of the flight. Also: absolutely no eye contact.

After flying over the Alps and along the eastern coast of the Adriatic the A320 turned to land at the far southern tip of Croatia. The airport coach (35HRK, NZ$7) sweeps along the great cliffs above the famous walled city, affording passengers (particularly those sitting on the left side) a splendid view of the walled city of Dubrovnik glistening by the sea. Alighting at the city's Pile Gate in its western walls, I walked 1.5km up the long, sweeping main road to the city's YHA, where I was spending the night. If you're planning the same walk, be sure to have drinking water with you, as I did - or if you're feeling lazy, just take the bus up the hill.

After dropping my bag in my room and admiring the view from the top floor sun terrace, I ambled back down to the old town for a first look inside the city walls. Passing through the mighty Pile Gate and a narrow second gate into the city itself, the view immediately opens out into a splendid vista with the arrow-straight pedestrian boulevard of the Stradun dividing the city in two - formerly a Venetian-style canal, it's now paved in smooth stone burnished by centuries of foot traffic. To the right of the Stradun is the venerable dome of the Onofrio fountain, built in 1438 but damaged in a 1667 earthquake and during the conflict in the early 1990s. At the end of the Placa is Luza Square, which is graced by the elegant facade of the Sponza Palace, St Blaise's Church, and a statue of knight of legend, Roland (who was also renowned for his proficiency in making excellent synthesiser keyboards). Behind the Rector's Palace, from whence the city was governed, lies the Dominican Monastery and the beautiful marina, which now bustles with tour parties and waiters serving the many shaded cafes. Venturing into the twisting alleys of the city's southern half is an exercise in exploration, with narrow passages between dwellings and an enjoyable sense that you might emerge in a completely different part of the city without even trying.

Dubrovnik's Pile Gate

The Stradun

Dubrovnik Marina

Following a night at the hostel I spent much of my first full day in Dubrovnik exploring the nearby island of Lokrum, a wooded retreat threaded with rocky paths a short distance from the town. The ferry departs from the marina and drops you at the island in around ten minutes, and if it's summertime you may well get a close up view of a superliner parked in the bay. (We passed the Italian vessel Costa Magica, the sister ship of the sunken Costa Concordia). Lokrum itself is a pleasant antidote to the crowds of Dubrovnik, with a cafe and small rocky beaches to enjoy if you want to relax, but also a swathe of trails to explore. This is a particularly good idea on a hot day, because there's plenty of shade to shelter under while you explore rocky cliffs and admire the coastal views. There's also a fine vista from the little fort at the summit of the island. The locals claim that King Richard I of England was billeted on the island when he returned from the Crusade - perhaps at an earlier iteration of the monastery that still occupies prime territory on the ocean side of the island. Perhaps there's a grain of truth to the story, but most histories seem to follow the narrative that Richard went from Corfu to Sicily and then landed or was shipwrecked at Aquileia in the far north of what  is now Croatia, before heading north to his eventual capture by Leopold, Duke of Austria, near Vienna in December 1192. If Richard was to visit the island nowadays he'd be impressed by the cool, fresh air, but perhaps not by the beach resort that blasts enormously loud pop music across a third of the island.

Lokrum

Back in Dubrovnik I paused for an hour or so taking in the must-see exhibitions at the War Photo Limited gallery, down a narrow side-alley from the Stradun. Designed to highlight imagery from the Yugoslav conflict in the 1990s, the gallery now also hosts a variety of challenging photography from contemporary war zones. When I visited the theme was the ongoing Syrian civil war. It was particularly poignant for me to see many of the sites I so enjoyed visiting in 2008 now ruined, and the citizens afflicted by so much danger and hardship. Many of the photos were of a challenging nature, but the exhibition provided a glimpse into the harsh reality of life and death in modern Syria.

After a day exploring I retreated to Lapad Bay in Dubrovnik to meet up with my Intrepid tour party at the Hotel Adriatic. The nine others on the tour turned out to be a fun bunch of like-minded travellers from Australia, the US, Canada and England, and Croatian tour leader Dinko proved to be a genial and knowledgeable host. We commenced proceedings with a relaxed roof-terrace restaurant dinner and planned the day ahead. The next morning, we commenced with a walk around the Dubrovnik city walls, which are astonishingly well-preserved and which offer magnificent views across the red tiled roofs of the city. Some of the tiles are venerable, but most of which are only two decades old, having been shattered during the Yugoslav siege in the 1990s. The walls provide an ideal vantage for visitors to appreciate Dubrovnik's dense-packed medieval layout and to admire its architecture from all sides.

Dubrovnik city wall view

Following the wall walk, we split up to pursue our own interests in the rising Adriatic heat. I paused for a visit to the city Maritime Museum, located inside one of the towers in the thick city walls. While the ancient and medieval history sections were of some interest, displaying the rich nautical heritage of the area, the upstairs gallery concentrating on portraits of ship owners and glass-cased steamer models was a little staid. My next stop was the Lovrjenac Fortress on the city's western edge, which provides superb views over the city after a strenuous but fortunately short climb up to its highest point. And finally I explored the 15th century Rector's Palace in the middle of Dubrovnik, which was the base for the city's appointed governor for nearly four centuries. The gilded interior boasts luxurious gilded fittings befitting the grandeur of a wealthy trading city, and provides pride of place to the ornately decorated sedan chairs the Rector used to move about the city.

Rector's Palace

Later that evening before dusk I took a walk in the hills behind Lapad Bay, admiring the coastal views and from the high vantage. On the trail I was caught by a beautiful Dubrovnik sunshower that erupted from the skies like an enormous spigot had been turned. I sheltered under a tree for the duration and enjoyed the refreshing cool breeze. Once it abated, I wound up the evening soaking up a stunning crimson sunset over the bay, before heading back to the hotel to prepare for our final morning in Dubrovnik.

Lapad Bay sunset

Following breakfast we gathered for an expedition to the summit of Fort Imperial, the Napoleonic-era fortress that overlooks Dubrovnik from a 405m ridgeline just behind the city. Visitors craving a relaxed journey can use the cable car to reach the top, but if you're feeling energetic the zig-zagging pilgrim's trail to the top is a rewarding climb. At the fortress there's a museum of the siege of Dubrovnik of 1991-92 which cost around 350 lives including around 85 Croatian civilians; the fortress was successfully held by the city's defenders despite being the target of Yugoslav Army artillery bombardment and airstrikes. Visitors can easily imagine how important the fortress was to the psychology of the defenders: from it, the entire region is visible, and if the Yugoslav army had taken it from the defenders, Dubrovnik's resistance and morale would have suffered greatly. During the siege, all supplies had to be lugged by hand up the path we walked up, including all food and ammunition. Given that my knees are still aching from the walk, that's no mean feat.

Dubrovnik from Fort Imperial

Following the fortress walk our tour party returned on the number 4 bus to the Hotel Adriatic to gather our bags and board a minibus for the next stage of our journey - on to the beautiful Adriatic isle of Korčula!

New Zealand posters by young German artists

New Zealand will be the guest of honour at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair, which is the largest and most important trade fair for the book industry. This is, as you might imagine, quite an impressive opportunity to showcase New Zealand literature and the country in general in a hugely influential and cosmopolitan market. It's not just a book fair for German writers and readers - everyone under the sun goes to Frankfurt. For a few days each October the city is overtaken by several hundred thousand visitors - buying, selling and snooping out the latest publishing treasures, all in search of the next breakthrough text. And each year one nation is chosen as the fair's showcase country, to highlight its national literary culture. New Zealand writer Paula Morris spoke to the German media recently at the launch of the New Zealand campaign in Frankfurt, and attempted to define New Zealand's way of writing:

Our national literature has all the necessary ingredients for a feast: a rich history, political dissent, social problems, identity crises, an evolving society – and a sense of humour. New Zealanders and New Zealand writers don’t live in a state of splendid isolation. We look back. We look forwards. We look outwards. Like all writers everywhere, we like to complain, and joke, and investigate, and to try to make sense of what we experience and observe around us.

While my recent first visit to Frankfurt came several months before the book fair, I did stumble on one of the byproducts of the New Zealand literary showcase. On the south bank of the Main the Museum für Angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Art) turned out to be holding an exhibition of New Zealand-themed posters designed by young local artists. It was an interesting opportunity to see how German artists perceive New Zealand and how they would choose to represent the New Zealand-themed book fair showcase to the German public. At least two artists adopted the motif of adorning the local hero, the philosopher Goethe, with a moko. There's some really great work in here from students in Darmstadt, Mainz, Offenbach and Wiesbaden, and two of the best will be posted around Frankfurt in September in the lead-up to the fair. Here's a selection of the ones that took my fancy.

Note that all images were taken by me but the artworks remain the property of the artists and/or the gallery. Please contact me in the comments to this post if you are connected to the artworks and would like them removed.

Damla Bulut



Susanne Henlein, Mona Happel



Sarah Klingenberg



Andra Stritter



Anna Platschek



Andreas Knapp



Franziska R[?]



Lisa Steinhauer



Marcel Franke



Felix Fischer

The single most successful German ruler

Grand Duchess Catherine, 1745
(via WikiCommons)

One real oddity was the continuing attractiveness of the little German states as sources of marriage partners. For much of the time really big partners were more trouble than they were worth (most famously perhaps Louis XVI's marriage to Maria Theresa's daughter Maria Antonia). In a pre-industrial era when quite tiny states could potentially be more than rich enough to bring in jewels and some nice hunting territory, there was much to be gained for one of the major rulers in tracking down some broad-minded, micro-state-bred creature who could proceed to fill a Schloss fairly reliably with children without causing diplomatic damage.

The Hanoverians, once they had become rulers of Britain, were brilliant at this and indeed have, with only two exceptions, followed an unvarying rule of provoking squeaks of baffled delight from princesses and their imperious mothers in tiny states up to the present day. In order, from George I onwards they have married a duchess of the Braunschweig-Celle family, a margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a princess of Saxe-Gotha, a duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a duchess of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (the unfortunate Caroline, beating fruitlessly on the doors of Westminster Abbey to be allowed in to attend her estranged husband's coronation), a princess of Saxe-Meiningen, a prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and a princess of Teck. This unvarying German choice partly came from the important role the British royal family had in German life, a link that only frayed with the First World War, but also from the peculiarly narrow requirement that the bride had to be Protestant as well as upper class, thereby cutting out great swathes of potentially less frosty and more enjoyable Mediterranean partners. The kaleidoscope of small German states however always meant that there was plenty of choice, that is until the kaleidoscope was put away in 1918 with the German revolution and all the princesses vanished into dodgy coastal hotels around Europe. This was part of the backdrop to Edward VII's disastrous decision to marry a Maryland divorcee and his younger brother's cleverer choice of the steely youngest daughter of a Scottish aristocrat. The current queen took us back to the good old days by marrying another member of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg family, much to everyone's relief.

I go on about this, partly because it is funny and curious (both the facts and the names), but also because these little territories had potentially very considerable power and prestige and the most bashful beginnings could end in glory. In a sort of asteroid belt of low-grade German princesses and narrow, petty, moustachioed princes, there was enough room for something really surprising to happen. Most absolutely alarming in this respect was pretty little Sophie Augusta Frederica of the laughable territory of Anhalt-Zerbst, a place so small it could hardly breathe. Her father was a Prussian field marshal and as a helpless pawn in plans to boost Prussian-Russian relations in the 1740s Sophie was shunted off to Russia where, after several ups and downs, she married the Grand Duke Peter, learned Russian, became Russian Orthodox, had Peter killed and wound up as Catherine the Great, devastating the Ottomans, the Swedes and the Poles and carving out immense new territories from Latvia to the Crimea. Indeed, a case could be made for her being the single most successful German ruler of all time, albeit not one ruling Germany.

- Simon Winder, Germania, London, 2010, p.243-5.   

My top 5 museums in Berlin

My most recent European adventure was a five-day visit to Berlin at the end of May, which was a great success. It had been an age since my only other visit to the German capital, so a return journey was definitely called for. I stayed in the excellent Wombats hostel in the former East Berlin; the nearest U-Bahn station is still named in the Cold War style, after Rosa Luxemburg, a co-founder of the precursor of the German Communist Party, who was murdered in 1919. 


The Museuminsel - the island in the Spree river that holds a collection of the world's finest museums - was definitely at the top of my Berlin agenda, and I managed to see nearly everything it had to offer. In fact, my Berlin visit turned into a museum and gallery extravanganza. Here's a rundown of my personal top five, in no particular order.


Märkisches Museum


The first museum I visited was the appealingly low-key yet interesting Märkisches Museum, which provides an overview of the history of Berlin since its founding in the Middle Ages. Located in a red brick monastic-like building, the museum displays a wide array of items from the city's past, including a great selection of old toys - Germany was once the world centre of expertise for toymaking - and a fascinating range of consumer products from previous generations. I couldn't overlook the annex containing medieval weaponry and armour, with racks of swords and a cumbersome full suit of plate armour. I also spent a while admiring the images in the venerable Kaiser-Panorama, an elegant circular polished wood booth with more than a dozen viewing windows. Each window displays a different stereoscopic photograph, and the whole set rotates every 30 seconds or so, enabling a viewer to take in all the photos from their seat without moving. There were some lovely crowd scenes at a Zeppelin launch and at political rallies in Unter den Linden, which just shows that stereoscopic photography is still as much of a novelty as it was a century ago.

'You can have anything you like, as long as it's tiny'

Kaiser-Panorama

Cash register, c.1910.

Bode Museum


Part of the thrill of visiting the Bode Museum, which occupies the northern tip of the Museuminsel, is soaking up the glorious building itself. Its semi-circular neoclassical front caps off the island beautifully, and once inside visitors are immediately confronted with an extraordinarily palatial setting, with marble staircases, gold trimmings everywhere and a triumphant regal statue as a centrepiece. The collections are equally impressive, with a huge number of artworks from the years before photography came along and complicated everything. The Bode is particularly strong on religious artworks. My favourite was probably the lively and charismatic statue of the Virgin and Child from the 1460s in which the baby Jesus is wriggling furiously and draping himself in Mary's cloak, while she tries to keep him under control. And a bust from two centuries later, a Mater Dolorosa from Seville in the 1670s, is an amazing feat of verisimilitude: the anguished expression is augmented by the superbly lifelike crystal eyes and the two tears rolling down her cheeks.   

Bode Museum

Virgin & Child From Dangolsheim, c.1460.

Mater Dolorosa, c.1670.

Pergamon Museum


My 1997 visit was marked with torrential rain as central Europe was beset with the worst flooding for 50 years, but I still had an enjoyable time exploring the wonderful history of the city. The highlight of the whole visit for me was touring the splendid Pergamon Museum on the Museuminsel in the river Spree, and basking in the glory of its key exhibits: the great altar from Pergamon in Asia Minor, the reconstructed Ishtar Gate from ancient Babylon and the Roman Market Gate of Miletus. In my 2011 visit I was determined to revisit the museum to take in its superb sights once more - this time with my D-SLR in tow. 


The wonders of the British Museum are of course universally admired, but not even a visit to the Parthenon Sculptures gallery can prepare you for your first sight of the magnificent Pergamon Altar, which is the centrepiece of the museum and the first thing you see once you enter. The sharp, polished steps climb to the holy space atop the altar, which affords a fine view of the highly detailed and well-preserved sculptures in the frieze depicting warring gods and monsters, which runs around the altar and continues along the walls of the museum. The next room is extra-tall to house the soaring facade of the Miletus market gate, a Roman construction from around 120AD, held aloft by graceful narrow pillars and flanked by regal statues. And beyond that lies the reconstructed minor gate from the great and ancient city of Babylon: the Ishtar gate, with its vibrant blue-glazed tiles depicting fearsome monsters with eagle claws and scorpion tails. This is only the smaller of the two gates that guarded the entrance to the great imperial city of antiquity, but it still towers majestically.

Pergamon Altar

Detail of Pergamon Altar frieze

Miletus market gate

Ishtar Gate

Ishtar Gate detail

Neues Museum


This substantially rebuilt museum reopened in 2009, and contains the strongest selection of Egyptian artefacts in Berlin. Its most famous exhibit is the immaculate Nefertiti Bust, which sits resplendent in its own dedicated room, gazing down a long corridor of other lesser riches. Alas, no photographs are permitted of this one exhibit, but there are plenty around on the net. I did photograph many other exhibits, including a depiction of Nefertiti herself with her royal husband Akhenaten - two slender faces gazing out serenely from their glass case, as in life side by side. The statues from the 18th Dynasty are approximately 3350 years old. Another statue, of the head of an 18th Dynasty princess, is a remarkably accomplished piece, with elegant swooping eyebrows adorning the wide expanse of the eyes and contoured around the curve of the skull.  From a much later era, when the Romans controlled Egypt, there's a splendid statue of the sun god Helios, which faces the Nefertiti bust down the long, long museum corridor. This statue from the 2nd century AD depicts the god in all his immortal perfection, and is a testament to the artistry of the age.    

Akhenaten & Nefertiti busts

Helios statue

18th Dynasty princess bust 

Deutches Technikmuseum


Long-time devotees of Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go will find much to admire here, in Berlin's technology and transport museum. Signs are good even as you approach the complex, with a looming Douglas cargo plane that participated in the Berlin Airlift suspended high on a rooftop above the museum's new gallery building. This is a museum that flaunts its big toys. The entrance hall boasts the Cessna in which the young Mathias Rust famously invaded Soviet airspace and landed near Red Square in 1987. (Rust was imprisoned for a year for the flight, before being deported back to Germany. The Cessna affair helped Premier Gorbachev's glasnost reforms, because it fatally damaged the standing of the Soviet military old guard.) I found the section on early radio and television fascinating - it included a very elderly Baird Televisor from 1932. There was also an interesting collection of vintage still and film cameras, just waiting to inspire the next generation of budding Henri Cartier-Bressons.

The largest space within the museum is reserved for its collection of vehicles. The nautical section has a full-size steam tug from 1901, and the aviation area upstairs boasts a splendid collection of German aircraft. My favourites were the Ju-52 trimotor airliner with its stylish shining metal ribs, and the innovative and graceful Stahltaube monoplane from 1914. Out the back in the museum's rail sheds is a fine selection of steam trains; I've never been a big train fan, but I have to admit that venturing underneath one massive engine via a service pit and smelling the fresh oil was remarkably good fun. (You'll not find me joining the trainspotters at the end of the platforms at Clapham Junction, however).

Deutches Technikmuseum

Mathias Rust's Cessna that he landed near Red Square

Heavy express locomotive, 1956 (rebuilt from 1939 streamlined locomotive)

Baird International Televisor, 1932.

Junkers Ju-52

Medium-format cameras from 1929-60.