Museum Island in Berlin: which museum to choose for two hours, and which ticket to buy

On 6 December 1912, in the ruins of a sculptor's workshop at Amarna in Egypt, a German excavation lifted a painted limestone head out of the rubble: a queen in a tall blue crown, with one eye left blank. The dig was paid for by James Simon, a Berlin cotton merchant. The bust of Nefertiti stood in his house for some years before he gave it to the city's museums in 1920.

The building where she was first shown to the public, the Neues Museum, was bombed in the Second World War and stood as a ruin for more than sixty years. The bust spent the last weeks of the war in a salt mine and the following decades in West Berlin. Building and bust were reunited in October 2009. The island she came back to has five museums and one entrance building, and most visitors have time for one house, or two at most. So the choice matters.

The island in brief

Museum Island is the northern tip of an island in the river Spree, in the middle of Berlin. Its five museums were built one after another between 1830 and 1930 for the collections of the Prussian kings, and the whole group has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1999.

The lawns, the colonnades and the riverside paths are free to walk. Each museum has its own door and its own ticket check. The white building with thin columns beside the canal is the James-Simon-Galerie, opened in 2019 and named after the man who paid for the dig: it holds ticket desks, a cloakroom and a café.

The James-Simon-Galerie, the entrance building of the island, opened in 2019. Photo: Leonhard Lenz, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

First, the bad news: the Pergamon Museum is closed

The largest and best-known museum of the island has been completely closed since October 2023 for a rebuilding that is planned in stages over many years. The Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and the Market Gate of Miletus cannot be seen. Do not plan a visit around them without checking first.

Across the canal from the island, a separate exhibition building called Pergamonmuseum. Das Panorama has been showing a painted 360 degree view of the ancient city by the artist Yadegar Asisi, together with some original sculptures. It is worth knowing about, and it is not the museum.

Which museum for your two hours

Neues Museum: Egypt and Nefertiti

The first choice for most people. It holds the Egyptian collection, with the bust of Nefertiti alone in a domed room at the north end, and the collections of prehistory, among them a tall cone of beaten gold from the Bronze Age known as the Berlin Gold Hat. The building is part of the visit: the architect David Chipperfield repaired the ruin without hiding its damage, so burnt brick and bullet marks sit beside new plain walls. Photographing the bust is not allowed.

The staircase hall of the Neues Museum, rebuilt plain inside the old brick walls. Photo: Yair Haklai, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Alte Nationalgalerie: paintings

The temple on a high base holds nineteenth-century painting: Caspar David Friedrich's Monk by the Sea, Adolph Menzel's scenes of Prussian life and work, and a room of French Impressionists. If you would choose pictures over statues, come here. Ninety minutes are enough.

The colonnade that runs round the garden of the Alte Nationalgalerie. Photo: Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.

Altes Museum: Greeks and Romans

Karl Friedrich Schinkel's building of 1830, with eighteen columns facing the Lustgarten, was the first museum on the island. Inside are Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities around a rotunda modelled on the Pantheon in Rome. It is the smallest visit: an hour to an hour and a half.

The Altes Museum across the Lustgarten. The lawn is free, and full on any warm day. Photo: Bahnfrend, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Bode Museum: sculpture and quiet

The domed building at the tip of the island holds European sculpture from the Middle Ages onward, Byzantine art and one of the great coin collections. It is the least visited of the five, which on a crowded day is a reason to choose it.

How the tickets work

• A ticket for one museum is entry to that house on one day. For the Neues Museum it is usually tied to a time slot.
• An island ticket covers all the museums of the island that are open, on a single day. It pays for itself with the second museum, if you have the legs for it.
• A museum pass for Berlin runs for several days and covers many museums across the city. It makes sense on a longer stay.
• Visitors under eighteen go into the state museums free, but still need a ticket for a time slot where slots are used.

Reading the partner's listings

• The Museum Island ticket with a city audio tour lists entry to the island's museums and an audio walk through the centre of Berlin. Its own notes say the commentary does not cover the inside of the museums.
• The Neues Museum ticket with an audio tour and a city walk is the one listing here whose commentary goes through the museum's halls.
• Listings that pair a walk through Berlin with a ticket to the Altes Museum, the Bode Museum or the Neues Museum include entry and an audio walk outside. Inside you are on your own.
• The walk with a ticket to the Panorama names a ticket in its title, while its list of inclusions mentions only the audio tour. Read what is written before you pay.
• Plain entrance tickets to single museums are sold too, without any audio.

These are the Museum Island tickets and audio tours our partner sells, with today's prices:

• on WeGoTrip Attraction Tickets Berlin: Museum Island Ticket & City Sights Audio Tour 2 hours4.5 (158) Book on WeGoTripfrom£28.98
• on WeGoTrip Art & Museums Berlin: Neues Museum Ticket & Audio Tour with a City Walk 2 – 3 hours4.5 (209) Book on WeGoTripfrom£16.91
• on WeGoTrip Museum & Attraction Tickets Berlin: Neues Museum Entrance Ticket 4.5 (205) Book on WeGoTripfrom£14.08
• on WeGoTrip History & Heritage Historic Walk Through Berlin with The Panorama - Pergamon Museum Ticket 2 hours4.6 (89) Book on WeGoTripfrom£17.50
• on WeGoTrip Art & Museums Berlin: Altes Museum General Admission Ticket 1 – 1.5 hours4.8 (76) Book on WeGoTripfrom£14.08
• on WeGoTrip History & Heritage Berlin's Historical Journey with Altes Museum Ticket 2 hours4.8 (76) Book on WeGoTripfrom£15.93
• on WeGoTrip Art & Museums Berlin: Bode Museum Ticket 1 – 2 hours4.6 (121) Book on WeGoTripfrom£14.08
• on WeGoTrip Walking Tours Berlin Sightseeing Tour with Bode Museum Ticket 2 hours4.6 (121) Book on WeGoTripfrom£16.91

Sold and delivered by WeGoTrip. You book on their site at their price; Viaqui may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

Practical notes

• Most of the museums are closed on Mondays, and some on a second day. The current days and hours are on our page for Museum Island.
• The underground station Museumsinsel, on line U5, is at the southern edge of the island. The S-Bahn station Hackescher Markt is five minutes away on foot.
• Coats and bags go into the cloakroom or lockers. Large rucksacks are not allowed in the rooms.
• Go at opening time, or in the last two hours of the day. The Nefertiti room is at its fullest around midday.

From here

The Berlin Cathedral stands on the same island, beside the Lustgarten. It is not one of the state museums and has its own ticket, which includes the climb to the dome. Unter den Linden starts at the bridge and leads west to the Brandenburg Gate in about twenty minutes on foot. For the rest of Berlin, or to fit it into a longer trip, open the trip planner for Germany.

Cover photo: Diego Delso, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.