Berlin Museum Marathon – Making The Most of a 3-Day Museum Pass

When I left my job in London to move to Berlin my colleagues made a collection and bought me The Berlin Pass, which includes a 3-Day Berlin Museum Pass.

Bought separately, the Museum Pass costs €19 and with it you get free entry to 55 of Berlin’s best museums and galleries.

Last week, I finally felt that I had the time and the energy needed to make the most out of it and, having drawn up an itinerary the night before, I set out on Tuesday to visit as many of the qualifying museums and galleries as possible.

Day 1

Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart (Museum of Contemporary Art)*

Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité
 (Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité)

Gemäldegalerie (Old Masters Paintings)

Musikinstrumenten-Museum (Musical Instrument Museum)

Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery)*

Had they been open I would also have visited the Kupferstischkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings) and revisited the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts) whilst I was at the Kulturforum.

Day 2

Jüdisches Museum Berlin (Jewish Museum Berlin)*

Deutsches Technikmuseum (German Museum of Technology)

Altes Museum (Museum of the Ancient World)

I had much more planned for Day 2 but hadn’t grasped just how big the Deutsches Technikmuseum is.

Day 3

Alliierten Museum (Allied Museum)

Brücke Museum

Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg (Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection)

Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery)

I would also have revisited the Neues Museum (New Museum) whilst I was on Museumsinsel but there was a €4 entry fee, as there was a temporary exhibition.

A 3-Day Museum Pass costs €19 and in 3 days the combined total of the standard entrance prices to all the museums and galleries I visited was €87.  That said, I wouldn’t recommend that everyone tries to see 12 different venues with their pass.

When I decided to use my pass in this way I knew that I wouldn’t be able to spend as much time as I would like in the museums that appealed to me but I wanted to sample as many as possible and then return to my favourites at a late date.

Also, I was revisiting some (marked with *) for the sake of taking more photographs and checking for any changes since I had last been.

It’s also worth pointing out that at the end of each day my feet felt the way they used to during my holidays in Berlin when I would sit on the edge of the bath with an icy cold beer in my hand and my feet in cool water until the throbbing stopped.

In the coming weeks I will post about my favourite venues that I visited during my Berlin Museum Pass Marathon.

The 3-Day Berlin Museum Pass is available from the participating museums and galleries and Berlin’s Visitor Information Centres or can be ordered online from visitBerlin.  There is also a list of the 55 museums and galleries the Museum Pass gives you access to on the visitBerlin website.