Individual journey to Berlin 

7.30 pm Deutsche Oper Berlin  -  Das Rheingold 

Possible sightseeing program - Please select the tours you would like when completing your booking (two are included in the tour price,each additional tour costs 80 EUR)):

Guided City tour:

Morning: "Discover Berlin"

This guided tour offers an exciting and comprehensive overview of the city's highlights and refreshes your knowledge of Berlin history in an entertaining way.

The three-and-a-half to four-hour walking tour takes participants to the most important sights of the city, such as the Brandenburg Gate, Museum Island and the Holocaust Memorial, and provides lots of interesting background information.

Professional city guides refresh historical knowledge in an entertaining way: Participants learn where Napoleon drilled his troops, where traces of the Hitler regime can still be seen today and how the East Germans brought down the GDR government through their peaceful uprising. Checkpoint Charlie and remains of the Berlin Wall, where spectacular escape attempts took place in GDR times, will also be visited during the tour.

Museum tour:

Early afternoon: Humbolt Forum - Adored or avoided: the Palace of the Republic

For 30 years, the Palace of the Republic shaped the centre of Berlin – as a representative building of East Germany with a wide range of cultural activities, as a place of peaceful revolution and German unity, as a place of decay, but also of interim use until its demolition. The tour provides an overview of the construction, function and use of the palace at various times, and invites visitors to engage with the diverse memories of the palace.

Opera:

5:00 p.m. Deutsche Oper Berlin - Die  Walküre 

Informative:

10:00 a.m. - early afternoon: Deutsche Oper Berlin delegates' meeting 

Possible sightseeing program:

Tours:

11.30 a.m. Sanssouci Park and Picture Gallery, Potsdam , 2 hours. in German - a similar tour is available in english as well

Park walk that leads through Friedrich's famous baroque garden and the landscape garden designed by Josef Lenné. The licensed tour guide for Sanssouci Park and the Sanssouci Picture Gallery will show you the special features of the popular park and tell you the story(s) of its royal residents. Afterwards, you will look at some outstanding works of art in Frederick II's private picture gallery, which is known as one of the first stand-alone gallery buildings in Europe. 

5.30 p.m. Guided tour of the Philharmonie Berlin (this date has been reserved by the Philharmonie, however the Philharmonie can only confirm our reservation after April 16, 2024 due to their extensive rehearsal and concert planning) 60 min.

Museum tours:

morning Alte Nationalgalerie - special exhibition Caspar David Friedrich,  Infinite Landscapes 90 min. German and English

To mark the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), the Alte Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, in cooperation with the Kupferstichkabinett, will for the very first time present a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the oeuvre of the most prominent painter of the German Romantic movement. Roughly 60 paintings and 50 drawings from Germany and abroad will be on display, including a number of world-famous, iconic works of art.

morning New Museum - Fascination of Nefertiti - 100 years of Nefertiti in Berlin 90 min. German and English

The New Museum is home to one of the world's most important collections of pharaonic civilization.  More than 1,800 exhibits in the Egyptian Museum and the papyrus collection take visitors back to everyday life of this era. You will be led into a legendary world and taken on a journey through time to ancient Egypt. The focus of the collection is the venerable Queen Nefertiti . “The Beauty Returns” is the translation of her name. In fact, her bust, which is over 3,300 years old, found its way back to the New Museum in 2009 after a long odyssey. Because of the war, the house had to be closed for a long time and the sculpture had to be relocated. Learn more about Berlin's most fascinating woman, her family, and the groundbreaking religious changes that accompanied her reign.

in the afternoon Bode Museum - interplay of European sculpture, painting and architecture, 90 minutes in German and English

The Bode Museum rises gracefully above the water and immediately catches the eye with its impressive dome. Due to its location at the northern tip of the Spree Island, it is considered a gateway to the art treasures of the Museum Island. The Bode Museum combines several collections: the sculpture collection and the Museum of Byzantine Art as well as the coin cabinet. On your tour you will encounter, among other things, works by some of Europe's most important sculptors, such as Tilmann Riemenschneider, Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden, Donatello and Antonio Canova. In conjunction with the sculptures, works of art from the Gemäldegalerie are also presented. Explore the development of European art history. Immerse yourself in the world of ancient mythologies and biblical stories

Possible additional concert visits:

8:00 p.m. Cultural Center Radialsystem - “A German Requiem ” by J. Brahms, Rundfunkchor Berlin

It is a truly unique production that the Rundfunkchor Berlin, directed by Jochen Sandig, performs for its audience as part of Brahms' "A German Requiem". You can expect a very special concert that will delight, deeply move and also comfort you.

8:00 p.m. Philharmonie Berlin - Sir Simon Rattle conducts Bruckner and Widmann

Bruckner's Sixth Symphony has long been one of the composer's underrated works. According to Sir Simon Rattle, this is because it does not meet the common expectations of a Bruckner symphony. It is shorter, more transparent and less pathetic than usual, “a piece full of humor and daring”. Bruckner himself seems to have seen it that way, because he humorously said that the Sixth was his “boldest”. To open the program, Simon Rattle conducts the premiere of a horn concerto that Jörg Widmann, composer in residence for the season, wrote for our principal horn player Stefan Dohr

Possible sightseeing program:

Guided city tours:

09.00 am  »The Golden Twenties in Berlin -  Theatre, Prostitution and Inflation, 2 Std.  in German only

During the city walk, participants are taken on a journey to the golden twenties in Berlin and gain an insight into this special decade. Which amusement palaces were built and which still thrill audiences today? What innovations were introduced during the Weimar Republic? The topics are diverse. The participants rush through time, past famous buildings, paintings and artists, the theatre landscape with its famous show stars and through the wicked nightlife. They will immerse themselves in the film world of the 1920s, get to know personalities of the time and understand Berlin as a modern city with many technical innovations. Finally, the tour guide will talk about money. At times it was transported in wheelbarrows or served as heating material in bundles. You will gain an insight into the living conditions of Berliners in the 1920s, into the poverty of people who were all millionaires and yet could not even afford an egg.

12.00 am »Historic Centre" Berlin from the Berlin Bear, the Hohenzollern and GDR relics: 2 hours. in German only

There are many history tours in Berlin. This historical city tour focuses on the origins of the city. Why were the first Berliners Cöllners? How did the marshland, once named Berlo = Berlin by the Slavs, become a metropolis with almost four million inhabitants? The history of the Berlin Bear, the Berlin City Palace and the historic Nikolai neighbourhood are also interesting.

Guided museum tours:

Morning; Pergamonmuseum and Asisi-Panorma-, 90 Min. German and English

The long wait is over - or at least interrupted. Even though the world-famous Pergamon Altar will still be restored for several years to come, at least some highlights from Pergamon will be coming back.

Together with the magnificent 360 ° panorama by Yadegar Asisi, more than 80 large-format objects from the Hellenistic royal capital of Pergamon will be exhibited in the interim building at Kupfergraben. For example, large parts of the Telephus frieze, the spectacular draped female statues, the massive Heracles' head, the most important portraits of rulers - not to mention the filigree marble candelabrum of a female dancer.

The tour guide accompanies you through the highlights of ancient Pergamon. You will get a profound overview of the historical era of Hellenism and an exclusive insight into the living environments of ancient urban populations: the everyday life of citizens, priests and kings.

early afternoon Alte Nationalgalerie - Art from Classicism to Romanticism  German and English

The Alte Nationalgalerie (the Old National Gallery) houses one of the finest collections of German and French masterpieces of the 19th century. It does not only give insights into art, but also into the ways of life and moral concepts of the society of that time.

Opera:

4pm  Deutsche Oper Berlin  - Siegfried 

Informative

10:30  am – ca. 1.30 pm Symposium at the Deutsche Oper Berlin

Possible sightseeing program:

Guided museum tours:

Morning, Altes Museum - Athen Rom Berlin ( 90 Min).  German and English

Altes Museum stands out due to its excellent location: opposite the former Berlin Palace, it is flanked by the Zeughaus (old Arsenal) in the west as well as Berliner Dom (the Berlin Cathedral) in the east. The view from the Lustgarten (Pleasure Garden) to the classicist building is among the most beautiful in the city. Inside the museum, the visitors enter a domed rotunda, modelled on the Roman Pantheon and thereby consecrated to all the gods. As a visitor of Altes Museum, you will experience one of the most important collections of Greek, Roman and Etruscan art with ypur tour guide. Explore the origins of Berlin's Museum Island with your tour guide and embark on an exciting journey into the ancient world.

Afternoon, Berliner Schloss / Humboldt Forum - On the traces of history (60 min).  German and English

The site where today’s Humboldt Forum stands has a long and eventful history: Hohenzollern residence, parade ground, Palace of the Republic, and great meadow – it has always been a venue of special political significance in the midst of Berlin, and at the same time one of artistic expression.

Which themes and objects still remind us today of the past and the various historical events? And what do they say about the history of the place?

The overview tour encourages discussion of historical images and their impact in the present. Based on selected stations and objects, it offers an insight into the history of the site from the time of the electors, kings and emperors to the debate about the demolition of the Palace of the Republic and illustrates the diverse use of the site in different times.

Galadinner:

7pm atHotel DoubleTree by Hilton Berlin Ku'damm

Berliner Dom - Exklusivführung und Orgelkonzert

10.00 a.m. Church service (optional)

Guided tours of Berlin Cathedral  - German and English

The dome of Berlin Cathedral rises in the heart of the city. The monumental building was intended to be nothing less than Kaiser Wilhelm III's Berlin answer to St Peter's Basilica in Rome. The church owes its incomparably magnificent neo-renaissance and neo-baroque design to this claim. The Hohenzollern crypt beneath Berlin Cathedral is the most important dynastic burial vault in Germany and, alongside the Capuchin crypt in Vienna, the royal tombs in St Denis Cathedral in Paris and the crypt of the Spanish kings in the Escorial near Madrid, is one of the most important dynastic burial vaults in Europe.

Opera:

4 pm Deutsche Oper Berlin  - Götterdämmerung 

Departure