Museums

Started the day with another premium bonds win! Nice :)
Laura and I set off down to Museum Island today, via a detour through some of the courtyards and little shops around Augustrstrasse.
Beautiful sunny day, so it was lovely to see some of the places I’ve been seeing in grey cloud looking much brighter! The forecast had suggested that it would cloud over by lunchtime but in fact it stayed bright all day. Of course as is the way with holidays we’d already planned to spend the day inside exploring all the galleries and museums on the island and after an uncharacteristically inefficient queueing system we eventually got our tickets for the whole set of them for the rest of the day.
Started in Neues museum and enjoyed the Egyptian material particularly. We talked a lot about the perennial questions of the ethics of collections being held in other countries, claimed purely because in this case the Germans led the excavation. Also found some of the ways in which the items were displayed (Bode museum) or labelled, and the collection of art on display (Alte National Gallery) less than engaging.
The Pergamon museum and panorama were fascinating and beautifully displayed however….lovely to end the day on that high and some stunning displays of so much fascinating material.
Formed part of the crowd around two young singers doing a wonderful Flower Duet on the bridge as we walked between museums…..they were terrific.
Walked back via a new route to Monsieur Vuong, a Vietnamese restaurant we’d had recommended. Short queue as the place was buzzing…delicious food and quick service and we loved all our dishes (duck in pandan leaf rolls, fish and noodles and sticky coconut rice with banana for me…all delicious!) although we were really full by the end! Needed the walk home afterwards…making another 10 mile day! Lovely to be sharing the place with Laura and chatting about our impressions of all we’ve seen as we went round.