Originally Posted by
Analise
Days 1 (Thursday) and 2 (Friday) will be Berlin days/nights. On Day 3 (Saturday) I will be going to Leipzig but will return by 7pm. Day 4 (Sunday) is a Berlin Day. Monday I will be leaving early taking the ICE to Frankfurt.
Which welcome card and museum card (if any) should I get?
I want to visit the Gemäldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, Checkpoint Charlie (museum), Berlin Wall, Pergamon Museum, Bodemuseum, Berliner Dom, and Alte Nationalgalerie.
I have a 12:00pm reservation to visit the Reichstag on Friday thrown in to this mix.
There are various choices with the Welcome Card and the Museum Cards. My going to Leipzig on Saturday ruins the 3 day Museum card as I assume those 3 days are consecutive.
So which Welcome Card should I buy? Should I get a Museum Card for the Museum Island or a Kulturforum museum card?
I know Thursday evenings from 6pm-10pm, the museums I'm interested in are free. Which museums do you recommend I choose for Thursday night? I'll grab a bite to eat in the museums.
Are there individual day cards for museums?
Whatever your recommendations, must I buy them online or can I buy them when I arrive in Berlin?
There are so many options but I don't want to make choices in which I don't get the most from these savings cards. Please advise! Thank you.
DON'T use info from the TIs there. They are not helpful IMO.
From my experience:
-- I'm not normally a hop on bus tour guy but it worked well in this city, where the sites are pretty spread out. If I were you, I'd do that the first day and use a three-day welcome card for days 2-4. If you really want to see the wall, go to the East Side Gallery on your own or via hop-on bus (some of them go there). and go on Sunday to Mauerpark, where there is a section of the wall splitting the park -- and there's a very cool flea market/karaoke concert deal going on. great local flavor.
As for museum cards, that one that includes all museums is probably better for you. The one combined with the welcome card only counts the museum island ones (pergamon, nues). (the TIs do not explain this). You can buy a one day for musuem island ones too but you won't need that if you get all museums pass (though even that does not cover some of them, such as the overcrowded DDR Museum).
You don't really need to go to the Checkpoint Charlie museum. There are free murals to look at near the site that are really a museum in itself. Checkpoint Charlie itself is a joke -- fake guards pose for pictures there and there's a McDonalds right behind it.