Nearly All The
Streets Are At Right Angles; They Are Kept Very Clean And The Shops Make A
Brilliant Display.
I felt so much pain in my legs, from the effect of my
pedestrian journey, that I was obliged to remain in my chamber one entire
day.
There is a very good table d'hote at my bin for twelve Groschen.
Wine is paid for extra, and at the rate of from 12 to 18 Groschen the
bottle. The sort usually drunk here is the Medoc. The prices of articles of
prune necessity are dearer in Berlin than either at Dresden or Vienna;
particularly the article of washing, which is dearer than in any country I
have yet visited.
The next morning I began my rambles, and directed my course to the favorite
and fashionable promenade of the beau monde, at all hours of the day, I
mean in the fine street or alley Unter den Linden, so called from it
being planted with lime trees. There is a range of elegant buildings on
each side, and at the end, near the Thier Garten (Park), is a superb gate
called the Brandenburger Thor in the shape of a triumphal arch ornamented
with a statue of Peace, with an olive branch in her hand, standing on a car
drawn by four horses abreast, the whole groupe being of bronze and of
exquisite workmanship. The four horses are imitated from the Corinthian
horses at Venice and yield to them in nothing but antiquity. Indeed they
have a much more pleasing and striking effect, in being thus attached to a
car, than standing by themselves, as the Venetian ones do, on the top of
the facade of a church. This Brandenburger Thor is constructed after the
model of the Propylaeum of Athens.
The Opera House, a building in the Grecian taste erected by Frederic the
Great with the inscription Apollini et Musis, and after that the Academy
of the Fine Arts engaged my attention. Both these buildings are remarkable,
and they are near the Linden. The old town is much intersected by canals
communicating with the Spree which divides it. I call it the old town, to
distinguish it from the quarter composed of streets of recent construction
between the former enceinte of the town and the Brandenburger Thor. The
Hotel of the Invalides, a ponderous building, bears the following
inscription: Laesis non victis. The Bank and the Arsenal next engaged my
attention, as also a Guard House of recent construction in the shape of a
Doric temple. The Royal Palace is an immense building, partly in the Gothic
and partly in the Grecian style. It is very heavy but imposing. The
interior of this Palace is royally fitted up, except the little room
occupied by the great Frederic, which is left in the same state as when he
occupied it; and you know he was not fond of superfluous ornament. In the
green before the Palace stands the statue of the Prince of Anhalt Dessau,
the founder of the Prussian Infantry system, and at a short distance from
this, on the Lange Bruecke, stands the colossal equestrian statue in
bronze of the Great Elector.
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