Love History, Love Culture, Love Arts: Berlin Feb. 2017.

This is the second time I’m writing this, I wrote lots of stuff down & then without warning WordPress (or maybe my fat fingers) decided to lose it for me.  Thanks WordPress …you massive eegit.

Anyway, I won’t go on,  onwards & upwards & so here we go, I’m writing it all again. Apologies though, it’s a long post this one.

I haven’t written for two whole weeks, various things have got in the way recently, kids, dogs, husband’s working abroad, kitchens…

But the past couple of weeks have been awash with nice historical, cultural and artistic stuff in Berlin so I’m going to do a bit of a Feb round-up of what we’ve been up to.

Firstly we had a great trip to the Naturkunde Museum Berlin (Natural History Museum). London’s Natural History Museum formed a huge part of my childhood visits to see my Nanna in the city, and so I was keen for Milo to form some memories too …though do kids remember stuff before they’re 3?? Not sure, anyway, it was a fab day out.

It’s an 8 euro entry fee for adults, 5 euro concession and under 6 yrs it’s free. It’s got dinosaur skeletons, stuffed animals galore, a lot about earth and the planets and this amazing room filled with jars of preserved creatures…which was fairly creepy but interesting none-the-less.

We saw Tristan the T-Rex, the most preserved example of a T-Rex skeleton in the world apparently.  Milo saw everything at top toddler speed as per, loved the dinos, and seemed fairly in awe of the stuffed animals.  It was really lovely to see.  Though I’m never quite sure how much to let him run riot, I don’t want to piss other people off but equally it’s nice to see him explore at his own pace (fast). I suppose it’s about balance. 🙂

The cafe wasn’t up to much and I should have been more organised and brought a picnic. German museums have great picnic areas…always bring one, lesson learned! So yes, big tick for this place. I would definitely recommend for kids of all ages.

A place I wasn’t so worried about toddler havoc was the MACHMit! Musuem fuer Kinder – a kids’ museum in Prenzlauer Berg.  It was a great place. They have themed exhibits and the current one is all about all people on earth, birth and growing up, how we are different but the same (that’s what I got from the German anyway).  It was cool. Milo particularly loved taking a small pushchair, putting a baby in it and pushing it around…toddler’s love pushing pushchairs, fact right?

There’s also a huge kids’ climbing structure in the middle of MACHMit.  It’s housed in an old church and they’ve built this massive wooden sort of ‘soft-play’ type labyrinth, except it’s not soft. Milo was a bit young to attempt it but my friend’s 3 & 5 year old loved it. I didn’t take a picture, but it’s amazing, something you just wouldn’t get in England. You’ll have to go to see it.

Whilst the older ones did that, we did some printing and painting & sat in a mini-yurt and played tea parties. Brilliant stuff.  So there’s still plenty for the younger ones. Fab all round. MACHMit! is 5,5 euro for those over 3 years, over 2 years it’s 3, 5 and under that is free.

Finally, just last week we went to the Ephraim-Palais. This is part of the Stadtmuseum Berlin umbrella and has visiting exhibitions. The current one is all about the Berliner Schloss and last Tuesday was their monthly Elternzeit Kultur day, where people with babies can gain free entry. It’s such a good initiative thought up by Museum Diary. The thing with Milo now however is his insatiable appetite for touching and climbing on things. So I won’t lie, I found the whole experience mildly stressful but the thing is we did it, I saw some nice historical cultural stuff, learnt a little bit about historical Berlin, ran around after Milo and left. I reckon we were there for 30 minutes in total but it was free so all was good.

In between this all we’ve also been going to our weekly art class at Little Art Lab, and it’s still brilliant as always.

So February has felt busy with creative, cultural and historical stuff. With the warmer weather March may bring, I’m hoping to get out and about to see some more of Berlin’s fantastic street art and find some more of those brilliant retro Photoautomat. I’ll keep you posted!

Tschuessssss xx

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