From the Bode Museum to the Fernsehturm: a half-day walk around Museum Island

Berlin began on a small island in the Spree, and the island still holds the city's grandest buildings. In the nineteenth century the Prussian kings turned its northern half into a district of museums. Later the rulers of Berlin kept rebuilding the southern half, each in their own style: a royal palace, a cathedral, a socialist parliament, and now a palace again.

This walk takes half a day and goes from the northern tip of the island to the television tower that East Berlin put up on the other side of the river. Six stops, all close together, so you can spend your time inside the buildings rather than between them. Two of them are museums worth entering, one is a cathedral, and the rest are best seen from the street.

Start at the island's northern end, where the Bode Museum rises from the water with a domed front like a small palace. Ernst von Ihne built it between 1898 and 1904 for Kaiser Wilhelm II, and it opened as the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum. It took its present name in 1956, after Wilhelm von Bode, the curator who shaped its collections. Inside you find the sculpture collection and Byzantine art.

From the Bode Museum, walk south-east across the island to the Old National Gallery. Friedrich August Stüler designed it as a Roman temple on a high base, and it opened in 1876. A flight of steps leads up to the entrance, guarded by an equestrian statue of King Frederick William IV. The paintings inside are nineteenth-century German and French: Caspar David Friedrich's Monk by the Sea, Adolph Menzel's Iron Rolling Mill, and works by Manet and Monet.

The Berlin Cathedral stands on the Lustgarten, the green square in front of the island's old palace. Julius Raschdorff and his son Otto built this church from 1894 to 1905. Bombs and a fire in the dome in 1944 left it badly damaged, and the nave was reopened only in 1993.

Cross the street to the Berlin Palace. The original, begun under Andreas Schlüter in 1689, was a Hohenzollern palace. East Germany tore down the war-damaged ruin in 1950 and built the Palace of the Republic on the site, which was itself demolished between 2006 and 2009. The new building by Franco Stella rebuilds three baroque facades. The fourth side, facing the river, is plain and modern. Stand back and compare them.

Cross the Spree and follow the road east to the Red City Hall. Hermann Friedrich Waesemann designed it, and it was built between 1861 and 1869. It is still the seat of Berlin's governing mayor and the city's Senate; the administration of the reunified city moved in on 1 October 1991. The tower is the part to look up at from the street.

The last stop is just beyond the City Hall. The Fernsehturm was built between 1965 and 1969 and stands 368 metres tall, counting its antenna. The observation deck is at about 203 metres. When the sun hits the tiled steel sphere, it can throw a cross of light across it. Berliners called this the Pope's Revenge, because East Berlin's government had removed crosses from churches.

In a short stretch you have passed a Prussian museum, a Protestant cathedral and a palace that was demolished and rebuilt, then a city hall of red brick and a tower from the socialist years. If you still have energy, go up the Fernsehturm and look back at the route: the island is easy to pick out below.