I spent some time Saturday doing some sight-seeing and walking around the city. First stop - the Reichstag, home of the German Bundestag, or parliament. I just wrote a paper about this building, so it was really great to see it in person. The line was huge to get inside, though, so I will visit it again another day.
Here's the famous portico, whose inscription reads: Dem Deutschen Volke, or To the German People. This is ironic because this building was funded and built by Prussian Kaisers who didn't think much of democracy. The inscription was proposed by the architect in 1899, but it wasn't actually installed until 1915 or 16, when the country was embroiled in WWI and the government thought it would be a morale booster. A bit of trivia for you: the iron used to cast the letters came from two cannons captured from the French during the Napoleonic Wars a hundred years prior.
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