Berlin & Beyond

The tour starts at 6.00pm on Monday 5 May, at the Adina Apartment Hotel Hackescher Markt, Berlin.

The tour ends after breakfast on Sunday 18 May, at The Westin Grand Hotel, Berlin.

After individual travel arrangements to Berlin, we meet in the evening for introductions followed by a welcome dinner at Oxymoron, situated in the first Art Nouveau courtyard of the Hackesche Höfe and within easy walking distance of the hotel. Overnight Berlin (D)

After an introductory talk in the hotel, we travel by coach to Charlottenburg Palace. Built by Elector Friederich III in 1699 as a summer palace for his wife Sophie Charlotte, this regal estate, the largest palace in Berlin, is framed by a baroque-style garden and contains over 600 gems and treasures from the century-long supremacy of the Hohenzollern dynasty. After our tour we visit the nearby Käthe Kollwitz Museum which holds one of the largest collections of works by the artist. We enjoy lunch along Kurfürstendamm, before returning to our hotel with the evening at leisure. Overnight Berlin. (B, L)

After a talk, we begin our day at the recently reconstructed Humboldt Forum, located in exquisite Berlin Palace. The Forum incorporates two existing museums, the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and the Museum of Asian Art. Our next stop is Berlin’s most famous landmark, the Brandenburg Gate. A symbol of Berlin and German division during the Cold War, it is now a national symbol of peace and unity. In the afternoon we visit the Gemäldegalerie. Assembled in the early 19th century, the gallery’s collection represents all the major schools of European painting and includes masterpieces by Botticelli, Raphael, Caravaggio, Breughel, Vermeer and Rembrandt. We then return to our hotel for an evening at leisure. Overnight Berlin (B)

Today we spend the day in Potsdam. The Prussian kings left their royal imprint on Potsdam with lavish palaces, parks,and gardens, many of them with UNESCO World Heritage status. An undoubted highlight of the day is the visit to Frederick the Great’s rococo summer palace, aptly called Sanssouci (‘without worries’ in French). We also tour the exterior of Cecilienhof Palace, with its rustic English Tudor design offering a contrast to Sanssouci, followed by a guided tour through the lakeside Marble Palace. Built in the Neoclassical style, the Grotto Hall, Concert Hall and the living areas are luxuriously furnished with marquetry, silk wall coverings, stuccowork, marble fireplaces, and decorative arts. After an early dinner
in Potsdam we return to Berlin. Overnight Berlin (B, D)

This morning, we walk to Museum Island. On the site of one of Berlin’s two original settlements, this unique complex of five state museums is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a must-visit in Berlin. Today we’ll visit the Neues Museum, the home of the Egyptian Museum and the famous bust of Nefertiti. From mid-morning, explore Museum Island further at your own pace and discretion. We then spend lunchtime in the nearby Hackesche Höfe, a district comprised of a series of interconnected courtyards bustling with restaurants, boutiques and galleries, before enjoying a cruise along the River Spree, taking in most of the major monuments and museums. This evening we’ll dine at a local restaurant, followed by a performance in the Grand Hall of the Philharmonie Berlin. Daniel Barenboim will conduct the world-famous Berliner Philharmoniker in two of Mahler’s late works: the expressive Adagio from the unfinished 10th Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), an orchestral work for two voices featuring mezzo-soprano Dorottya Láng and tenor Benjamin Bruns. Overnight Berlin (B, D)

Performance I
Venue: Philharmonie Berlin
Program: Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 10: 1st Movement Adagio and Das Lied von der Erde
Artists: Berliner Philharmoniker, Daniel Barenboim (conductor), Dorottya Láng (mezzo-soprano), Benjamin Bruns (tenor)

This morning we’ll return to Museum Island to visit the Bode Museum, home to the Sculpture Gallery and the Museum of Byzantine Art. Around midday we make our way to Leipzig,
with the afternoon at leisure on arrival. We meet again in the evening for a pre-show dinner together at the beautiful
Oper Leipzig before enjoying a new production of Tchaikovsky’s macabre thriller, The Queen of Spades (Pique Dame). Set in St. Petersburg at the close of the 18th century, it offers an exciting dive into the world of Russian fairy tales. Soprano Solen Mainguené will take on the role of Lisa, the young woman who embarks on a deadly love affair with the gambling-obsessed officer Hermann, sung by tenor Brenden Gunnell. Anna Skryleva conducts the sweeping score. Overnight Leipzig (B, D)

Performance II
Venue: Oper Leipzig
Program: Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades
Artists: Brenden Gunnell (Hermann), Tuomas Pursio (Graf Tomskij / Zlatagor), Mathias Hausmann (Fürst Jeletzkij),
Dan Karlström (Tschekalinskij), Randall Jakobsh (Surin),
Solen Mainguené (Lisa)

Leipzig is one of the great German cultural centres, with connections to Bach, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Martin Luther, Goethe, Schiller, and the Neue-Leipziger-Schule art movement. This morning we take a guided walking tour of Leipzig, followed by a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts. The original museum building was destroyed in an air raid in 1943, though many of the paintings were saved. A new home for the collection opened in 2004, 61 years to the day after the original museum was destroyed. The remainder of the afternoon is free to
explore Leipzig at your leisure. Overnight Leipzig (B)

On the way to Dresden this morning we’ll stop first at the ‘Monument to the Battle of the Nations’ – Europe’s largest memorial, and the site of the 1813 defeat of Napoleon by a coalition of German forces. Then it’s on to Meissen, on the banks of the Elbe not far from Dresden, to stroll the town and have lunch. We arrive in Dresden in the late afternoon and take an orientation walk through the old town. We view the Frauenkirche, an impressive Baroque church that was destroyed in World War II and beautifully restored and reopened in 2005. Overnight Dresden (B, L)

After a talk this morning, we visit the extraordinary ensemble of architecture and landscape gardening that makes up Pillnitz Palace. Built by August the Strong as a ‘Water Palace,’ Pillnitz was the summer residence of many electors and kings of Saxony. Here we also visit the internationally renowned Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Art), the oldest of its kind in Germany, which houses a wide variety of craftwork, fashion and design from the early Middle Ages to the present day. We then spend the afternoon at the Zwinger Palace, an excellent example of late Baroque architecture in Germany. Built between 1710 and 1728, the Zwinger was used for court festivities and tournaments. The palace contains Dresden’s Old Masters Picture Gallery, with works by Raphael, Rubens and Canaletto. The evening is at leisure on return to our hotel. Overnight Dresden (B)

We begin the day by venturing into the Green Vault (The Grunes Gewolbe Museum), founded in 1723 by Augustus the Strong as one of the first public museums. A treasure trove, it contains an extensive collection of precious objet d’art. Our tour this morning takes us through the Historic Green Vault, which is composed of ten lavish Baroque rooms, and the New Green Vault, a modern labyrinth consisting of 12 exhibition rooms. Following a brief lunch break, we then return to Berlin by coach with the evening at leisure on arrival. Overnight Berlin (B)

We start our tour today with the Wilhelmstrasse, hub of the Nazi administration. We visit the moving Holocaust Memorial, the site of the new Reich’s Chancellery, Hitler’s Bunker and the Luftwaffe Ministry building, the site of Gestapo Bunkers. Next it’s on to the fascinating Topography of Terror memorial and Potsdamer Platz, to stroll around what is now the modern heart of unified Berlin. In the afternoon we’ll focus on the newly restored New National Gallery, housing Berlin’s 20th Century Art Collection. Our final stop will be the German Resistance Memorial Centre, created to commemorate those members of the German Army who tried to assassinate Hitler
in 1944. Tonight we enjoy traditional German cuisine in a local restaurant. Overnight Berlin (B, L, D)

This morning we visit the ‘New Synagogue’, which was significantly damaged on Kristallnacht in 1938. The restored building reopened in 1995. We then stroll through the old Jewish district and the Jewish Museum of Berlin, designed by Daniel Libeskind and opened in 2001. After lunch, we investigate Berlin in the late 1940s and 1950s – the height of the Cold War. Our tour includes sections of the Berlin Wall, the former Stasi headquarters and Karl-Marx-Allee, a broad boulevard lined with impressive Socialist Realist buildings. This evening we head to Berlin’s state opera house, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, for Wagner’s eerie drama The Flying Dutchman. British bass-baritone James Rutherford stars as the accursed Dutchman, alongside German soprano Clara Nadeshdin as the woman determined to redeem his soul. Overnight Berlin (B)

Performance III
Venue: Staatsoper Berlin
Program: Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman
Artists: Choir of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Clara Nadeshdin (Senta), Falk Struckmann (Daland), James Rutherford (The Dutchman)

On our final day together we take a coach tour of the modern city, focussing on its recent architecture and art. We pause to survey the collection at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art, and following a lunch break, we visit the recently-opened Swedish photography museum Fotografiska in the famous Tacheles building. The Tacheles was once a symbol of underground culture – an abandoned department store in Berlin’s Jewish Quarter where a group of young artists from East Germany created their own utopia. Evicted in 2012, with the promise to keep it as a cultural space, Fotografiska today hosts exhibitions from international and local artists. Tonight we farewell Berlin with dinner atop the Reichstag Building. A symbol of the struggles and eventual triumph of the city, the Reichstag first opened in 1894, was destroyed by fire in 1933, and then became the first meeting place of a reunified Germany. The reconstruction of the building was completed in 1999 to a plan by British architect Sir Norman Foster. His plan included an extraordinary glass dome at the top of the building which we will ascend. Overnight Berlin (B, D)

The tour ends after breakfast this morning. Transfers are available to Berlin’s Tegel Airport for those departing today. (B)