Belle Skinner Journal Friday, September 16, 1887

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Friday, Sept. 16.

This morning we got a courier and started out to see the city.  We drove all about.  The city is beautiful, the streets lovely.  Unter den Linden one of the principal streets is very wide and has four rows of large trees through it, forming three arches.  On this street most of the foreign Ambassadors live.  Their houses are magnificent—quite as palatial as the Emperor’s palace which is on the same street.  On this street is also a magnificent equestrian statue of Frederick the Great.  At the end of the street is the famous Brandenburgh Gate—modelled after the Porpylaca at Athens—surmounted by a statue of Victory with horses.  This statue was taken by the French to Paris as a trophy, but was recaptured by the Germans in 1813.  Just outside the Gate the Their Garden begins.  At the entrance is a column 190 ft. high crowned by a statue of Victory, cast from the French canon taken in 1870-71.  Around the base of the

LXXVII

Columns are numerous bas-reliefs representing scenes from the battle.  Queen climbed to the top of the monument, but none of the rest of us felt equal to it.  After this we visited a Panorama of the battle of  Redan. After lunch we drove through the Licz gardens to Charlottenburgh where we saw the palace of the present Emperor’s Mother and Father, and also the Mausoleum where they are buried.  The mausoleum is mostly of blue marble, and contains many fine statues of both the Emperor and Empress.  It was built by the present Emperor.  Friedrich St. is the principal business street of Berlin and on it we did considerable shopping.  Queen and I each bought ourselves an umbrella, a present from Will.  Queen bought a hat, and I an ulster.  We also got a number of little things.