When we first arrived in Berlin, we purchased museum passes that are good for three consecutive days, so we’ll do most of our museum hopping at the beginning of our stay. Today we visited the Alte Nationalgalerie on Museum Island where we saw an exhibit of landscapes by Caspar David Friedrich. I found this exhibit fascinating because Friedrich did not just paint beautiful scenes he viewed, but composed landscapes from his imagination combining elements almost like a collage.

I would have like to stay much longer and explore more of the Alte Nationalgalerie, but we had tickets to an Espresso Concert at the Konzerthaus Berlin, featuring a young violinist and a pianist performing pieces by Amy Beach and Robert Schumann. It was a very pleasant way to spend and hour in the afternoon, although it took us almost that long to find the entrance to the hall because of construction on the street surrounding it.

Our evening entertainment was the second (and my favorite) of the Wagner Ring operas, Die Walküre. The orchestra was marvelous, the singing was wonderful, and the staging was interesting, if a little weird. (Click on the link above to see what I mean.) I do like what they do with fabric and lighting, but that piano is still a mystery to me, and I was hoping the Valkyries would ride in on horses. We sat next to our new Scottish friend (a university professor from Edinburgh) and had a drink with him during the first intermission. In the second intermission, we met and conversed with an interesting Berliner with excellent English who is an opera lover and a judge (although he said he had no opinion on the legal woes of Mr. Trump).

Tomorrow we will use up our museum pass and then attend a concert with our favorite orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker. Stay tuned!