Miletus market gate

Continuing our visit of Pergamon museum in Berlin, we see this immense structure. It's composed of stones excavated  from Turkey. Miletus is an ancient city in Turkey and also mentioned in the bible. German explorers were able to retrieve the many pieces of stone and reconstruction this market gate inside the Pergamon museum. Its so impressive.

I'll take your picture

A visitor asked me to take pictures of him and his family. I said, Ok, if you'll take mine afterwards. In front of Ishtar gate in Pergamon museum, Berlin.

Fierce animals

Fierce animals line the walkway leading to the gates including the Ishtar gates. This complex is massive and the Germans took the better part of it home. I read there are other bits scattered in museums round the world. Saddam built a model Ishtar gate in Baghdad but it has been badly damaged by the war.

The Ishtar gate

 This is the magnificent Ishtar gate that King Nebuchadnezzar built in Babylon, present day Iraq. The German explorers took back all these from the site and rebuilt it in the Pergamon museum in Berlin. This Ishtar gate was one of the eight that graced Babylon. This was a smaller one, imagine the bigger one, it probably wouldn't fit here. I read this museum was rebuilt to make it bigger because of this gate, and the others including the Miletus market gate and the Pergamon altar.

Here are inscriptions made by King Nebuchadnezzar that says that he built it. The line to get in to the Pergamon was not that long but because they limit the number of visitors entering, the wait to get in was long. It took almost 2 hours to get in.It was well worth the wait.

Museum Island, Berlin

 This is the Berliner Dom, an 18th C cathedral. Museum island is surrounded by the Spree river. Here on the island, besides the Berliner Dom, is home to some of the major museums in Berlin, an Unesco world heritage site.

My reason for being on Museum island was the Pergamon museum, a truly magnificent place.

Berlin main train station

I flew into the old Tegel airport, small and lacking in services. I'm amazed the new airport is still not ready after all isn't Berlin the capital of Germany and a former capital of the great Prussian empire? Anyway very  little remains of its communist past, there's considerable rebuilding and the new buildings are all of glass and steel as was the case of this fantastic main train station. I stayed in a hotel just next to it. I took the Tegel bus from the airport and as we approached the train station I could see across the river, the glass dome of the Reischtag. I didn't think I'll be so close to it but there it was. Wow, it was quite exhilarating.

Victoria train station, London

 I like staying around the Victoria train station area. It makes for easy access to transportation to Europe and the rest of England. It can be very busy at times.

 Of course there is the iconic double decker buses that England is famous for.

 Not my hotel but it was close to my hotel which did look as nice as this.

I went foraging for food at the food stalls in Victoria station, scored some cut fruit, a Cornish pasty and a ham sandwich. Its all good, I miss it already.

Time to leave

 Here we are waiting for our tour to start. The tour took over an hour and we were all enthralled. Another lady and I had to leave before the end of the tour. What a pity. The piece de resistance was the beautiful studio that appeared in so many books and magazines. We saw it and ran out to a waiting bus.

 The lawn was empty of people earlier in the day but as the day progresses....

 Visitors were picnicking on the lawn. What an amazing sight!

 One last look......

Back on the shuttle and back to Lewes train station we go.....

Charleston and the Bloomsbury group

 It was Leonard Woolf, husband of Virginia Woolf who found Charleston farmhouse . He and Virginia were living close by.

 Virginia wrote to her sister, 'I wish you'd leave Wisset and take Charleston. Leonard went over it and says its a most delightful house....I has a charming garden with a pond, and fruit trees and vegetables, all rather run wild but you could make it lovely.'
Vanessa Bell checked it and found that it could suit her purpose of providing a refuge, not just for her and her children but also a way for Duncan Grant and David Garnett to get away with being conscientious objectors. World war I was raging on at this time. So Vanessa Bell moved into Charleston. 'Large rooms and airy' was the description at that time. Its true, I was amazed at how large the rooms were and how light and airy the house was, when I visited.

Charleston farmhouse, the interiors

 No photography was allowed in the inside of the house. So I had to use the photos I took from this book.

Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant painted the interiors, not just with plain paint, they painted on wall paper, they painted the doors, the fire places, the beds and everything that could take on paint.

 Vanessa loves to paint circles and cross hatching and her work can be seen throughout the house.

 Duncan Grant painted this door panel.

 Vanessa painted the top of this dining table. The wall is painted black with yellow stripes to resemble wall paper because they could not afford to wallpaper the room. They used leftover paint from their work.

 There was a mirror in the centre but for some reason was broken. But not to worry, Duncan painted a mural in its place.

 Vanessa's bedroom with pictures of her three kids being displayed on the wall.

 They made a new room for Vanessa on the ground floor with access to the garden.

Here one can see Vanessa's work on the window embrasure, those circles again.