Mitte: Museum Island and the Spree
Five great museums on a river island, a cathedral, a rebuilt palace, and the tower that ends every Berlin walk. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Bode-Museum, the Spree point
Come from Hackescher Markt and meet the island at its sharpest end, where the Bode-Museum's dome sits on the water like the prow of a ship. The best free thing here is the angle itself; cross the Monbijoubrücke and look back.

2. The Pergamonmuseum exterior
Don't queue — you can't. The Pergamon has been shut for a deep refit since October 2023 and only partly reopens in 2027. Walk the colonnade outside, note what you're missing, and come back in a few years.

3. The Lustgarten and the Altes Museum colonnade
The lawn is for sitting; the long Schinkel colonnade behind it is for walking slowly. Eighteen Ionic columns and a flight of steps that the whole square seems built to climb.

4. Berliner Dom
The cathedral is heavier than it needs to be and all the better for it. You don't have to pay to go up the dome walkway, but it's the one paid climb on this walk worth the steps — the view down onto the Lustgarten is the reward.

5. Humboldt Forum (the Berliner Schloss facade)
Three sides baroque reconstruction, one side blank modern — the rebuilt royal palace housing the non-European collections. Walk through the central passage even if you skip the galleries; the courtyard is open and free.

6. Nikolaiviertel
The *Nikolaiviertel* is a medieval quarter that mostly isn't — rebuilt by the GDR in 1987 around the genuinely old *Nikolaikirche*. Knowingly fake and still the calmest lanes in Mitte. Cut through toward the river.

7. Fernsehturm at Alexanderplatz
End facing the TV tower, the GDR's 368-metre full stop. You don't need to go up; standing under it on Alexanderplatz, with the S-Bahn rattling overhead, is the proper end of a Mitte walk. Trains from here go everywhere.

Mitte: Museum Island and the Spree