June 21 -- 20,000 Steps.

We slept until around 9:00 and then made a mad dash to breakfast.  Today we bought a 3-day museum pass. Our first stop was the Music Museum, which was one of the few museums not actually on the Museum Island.  The day was overcast and rainy, and we chose to walk to this place -- and, again, the Google way took us through the closed park.  I had figured this out, however, so we managed to get there without too many twists and turns.  See that direct route? Forget about it.  We had to circumvent the park totally, which made our trip much longer than it would have been.

Anyway, we arrived at the museum and walked around from earliest to most recent instrument collections.  It was a lovely space, but it could have used some actual music playing somewhere.

What an interesting keyboard.

A theorbos from Cyrano de Bergerac times.

Flutes for Alicia

A monster of an instrument

 A very small traveling piano

An overview of the place

Afterwards, I looked on Google and found a restaurant not too far from the museum for lunch. It was actually in the Sony Centre, a mall with a distinctive roof.

And here's Bob with yet another set of beers!

We then walked back to our hotel. I was looking for a bank, and while we searched, we came upon the last pieces of the Berlin Wall set where the wall used to be.

 We also got a decent shot of the back of the Brandenberg Gate.

Then it was back to the hotel to rest for a bit before heading to the Reichstag cupola. There was an arson fire in this building in 1933, and Hitler never used it during his regime. After World War II ended, it sat untouched until the early 1960's when it was weatherized in a very basic way.  After German reunification in 1990, work began on the place and was finished in 1999.  

We had made reservations a couple of months back -- it's free to visit, but if you don't make reservations ahead of time,  you have to wait in a really long line to get in. That tip was thanks to my former student and current German teacher.  Thanks, Andy!  We got there 1/2 hour early and watched the show since our tour started at the same time as the Germany-Northern Ireland game, and soccer fans were everywhere. Bob even got a flag from a some random teenager.

Our tour time finally arrived. Poor Bob had to throw away his newly acquired flag -- guess they didn't want rabid soccer fans spoiling the view, which was spectacular.  Andy had recommended this building as the best place to see Berlin rather than the Tower (which cost) because the city wasn't full of tall buildings.  And, of course, he was right!  

The top of the Brandenberg Gate.

Walking down the ramp.

The obligatory selfie.

We tried for an arty shot of Bob, who was standing at the bottom of the ramp, while I took pictures of the curved mirror interior of the cupola. He's reflected in the right center part, we think.

Such a unique way to see the city.  

We walked back to the hotel, which was relatively close, and decided that we would go back to the beer garden we'd stumbled upon the day before.  Of course, we knew we couldn't sit outside because the place had a big screen TV with loads of fans watching the soccer game there. We were content to sit inside and guess the names of the German chancellors post-World War II, whose portraits were on the wall near our table. Funny moment -- one of the other patrons of the restaurant made the manager move two portraits because they were out of order!  After enjoying more Bavarian-style food, we checked out the bar in our hotel for some Bailey's and vino, and then it was off to bed.

Oh, Germany won 1-0.