A Palace and a Palace of German Food!

With Dave off of work today -- yay for weekends -- we headed to the Charlottenburg Schloss (Schloss = Palace). It's just a quick trip across town -- though today it was made difficult as Berlin is getting ready for its marathon on Sunday. So many roads are closed. Thank goodness for the nav system!

Me in the courtyard of the Palace

The Schloss is very long building that dates back to the 17th century and was built as a summer home for Fredrich III and Queen Sophie Charlotte. The center of the building is original and subsequent monarchs added wings to house their art collections and visitors.

We paid the admission price and walked in. The first room highlights the destruction to the palace during World War II and the restoration that started quickly afterwards. Needless to say, the allies (us) bombed the hell out of this thing. That's about the last place I noticed, the rest of the tour was spent making sure Alice, who was slippery as an eel this morning, didn't cause anymore destruction on the poor building.

Running the grounds

The grounds behind the palace was the most fun for the kids, where they were able to run around like animals and scare the other visitors. Yes, there was a fountain. And, yes, Alice was very close to falling into it. Her obsession with water features continues.

Beer, in a TALL glass

For lunch, we ate at a touristy and delicious "authentic" German restuarant nearby called Brauhaus Lemke. Dave had a beer brewed on premise.

I have to tell you, every restaurant we've had a sit-down meal in has been fabulous. The mushrooms and tomatoes are especially fresh and yummy. Leah and Alice have developed a taste for wienerschnitzel -- which is, let's face it, pretty close to chicken nuggets.