Garden Visit : Berlin's Tiergarten

Berlin's Tiergarten is not really a "Tiergarten" - an "animal park" -  like the name implies but a huge innercity green area more like New York's Central Park at two-thirds of its size. 

Its name derives from its history as a hunting ground of the Prussian kings. It is best explored by bike, connecting the old west with its shopping areas around KaDeWe and Bahnhof Zoo railway station to the government area around Reichstag to the east smack in the middle of the city. You can cycle from one end to the other and explore lakes and small streams, meadows, a rose garden, and lots of unusual statues and other monuments. 

a stag in the rose garden

 Asters

 Echinops and Echinacea

 lots of day lilies in July

  an interesting monochrome combination of allium seed heads and not yet fully opened sedum flowers

flowering hosta

 the composer Albert Lortzing

Beethoven

Princess Luise and her husband Friedrich Wilhelm III have their own little island "Luiseninsel" -  look at the beautiful crochet-like carvings of her scarf.

The hunting history is depicted in many bronze sculptures:

 A tribute to fox-hunting? The horse looks exhausted.

 Goldelse in the background

Poor guy! I can't image they ever hunted lion in Berlin, certainly not females with cubs! 

She wears spurs on her bare heels!

Apart from bronze animals the park is populated by many birds:

a blue tit feeding its little ones

I have been bird watching in Germany since childhood but here I am at a loss: I have no idea, what the name of this bird might be - never seen anything like that. From its size and behaviour it looks like a mutant blackbird with a white face and beard.

here the normal version

Further down the park in  the thicket one finds all sorts of strange monuments that in today's Germany one would rather like to hide: 

Soldiers and their families 

The Soviet Union built a large monument close to the former border:

This cannon has found new use as a home for a sparrow couple in a surprising new interpretation of the German proverb "Mit Kanonen auf Spatzen schießen". No shooting here! 

"Aus Kanonen mit Spatzen schießen"

Another monstrous monument from 1901 is for Bismarck. I am not sure what this wants to tell us:

Here a Germanic male is hammering his sword. His wife sits to the right reading a book or possibly reading out instructions for him how to do it? Allthewhile her sister to the left is facing the foe bare-breasted ... 

Hm. The front side does not give us any more clues: The bare-breasted lady has actually killed a lion with a foot and what looks like a small telescope. Another male is carrying the whole world on his shoulders. And everything presided over by Bismarck. But wait: maybe the idea behind it is not as ludicrous  - an unwelcome reflection just crept up in my mind, of modern Germany and its perceived role in Europe - just replace the male Hercules with Mrs Merkel ... and Macron the one with the sword, guided by his classics literature reading wife ...?

The reading lady is elegantly leaning on an Egyptian sphinx for more support from a glorious past.  

Enjoy the walk!

... reflections in muddy water ...