Museum Island

Museum Island (Museumsinsel) occupies the northern tip of a slim island in the Spree River in central Berlin, enclosed by the Spree to the west and the Kupfergraben canal to the east. Five of the world's great museums were built here between 1830 and 1930, and the ensemble is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Altes Museum (1830, Karl Friedrich Schinkel) houses Greco-Roman antiquities and is considered one of Germany's finest neoclassical buildings. The Neues Museum — bombed in the Second World War and sensitively reconstructed by David Chipperfield — contains Egyptian antiquities including the celebrated 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti, one of the most visited single objects in any German museum. The Alte Nationalgalerie holds 19th-century European painting and sculpture across five floors of a Corinthian-columned building resembling a temple. The Bode Museum, at the island's pointed northern tip, contains Byzantine art, coins, and medieval sculpture. The Pergamon Museum — the island's busiest venue — houses the reconstructed Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, and the Market Gate of Miletus, but it is currently undergoing phased renovation until approximately 2037, with portions closed at any given time. A single-museum ticket costs around €14 for adults; the Museumsinsel day ticket covering all five costs around €24. Thursday evenings offer extended hours with slightly fewer visitors than weekend afternoons.