Alte Nationalgalerie

The Alte Nationalgalerie is the most romantic museum in Berlin, in every sense. It stands on a high plinth in the middle of Museum Island like a Corinthian temple, with a grand double staircase and an equestrian statue of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, and it was built in the 1860s and 1870s to house a national collection of contemporary art for the newly confident Prussian state. Today it holds the State Museums' collection of nineteenth-century painting and sculpture, from the end of the Enlightenment to the beginnings of modernism, and it is small enough to see properly in a couple of hours. The heart of the collection for most visitors is the group of paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, the great German Romantic, including the famous pair The Monk by the Sea and The Abbey in the Oakwood, which hang together and still feel startlingly modern in their emptiness. Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the architect who shaped so much of Berlin, appears here as a painter of dreamlike Gothic cathedrals and Mediterranean views. Adolph Menzel, the great chronicler of nineteenth-century Berlin, is represented by works including his celebrated Iron Rolling Mill, one of the first major paintings of industrial labour. The museum was also a pioneer in buying French Impressionism at a time when German officialdom disapproved, so you will find Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas and Cezanne alongside German contemporaries such as Max Liebermann, and sculpture by Rodin, Schadow and others in the halls. The building itself is part of the pleasure, with its coloured walls, painted ceilings and staircases that make walking from room to room feel like a procession. Entry is covered by the Museum Island day ticket as well as by a single ticket, and under-18s go free at the State Museums.

How to plan your visit: the gallery is open from Tuesday to Sunday, roughly 10am to 6pm, and closed on Mondays, like most of Museum Island. It is rarely as crowded as the Neues Museum, but special exhibitions can draw queues, so a timed ticket bought in advance is sensible at weekends and during major shows. If you plan to visit two or more museums on the island on the same day, the Museum Island day ticket is better value than individual tickets. Leave larger bags in the lockers, and allow around two hours for the permanent collection, more if an exhibition is running.

Getting the most from it: the building works best from the top down, so take the stairs or lift to the upper floor, where the Romantic painters hang, and see the Friedrich rooms while you are fresh. Give The Monk by the Sea a few quiet minutes; it is one of those paintings that changes the longer you look. Then work down through Menzel and the Berlin painters to the French Impressionists and the sculpture on the lower levels. The galleries are well lit by daylight, which suits the landscapes, and late afternoon is a lovely time to be here. Outside, the colonnaded garden in front of the museum is a peaceful place to sit between museums and one of the most photogenic corners of the island.

Who it suits and what to pair it with: art lovers who want the German Romantic tradition at its source, couples looking for a beautiful and unhurried museum hour, and first-timers who find the larger museums overwhelming. Families with older children can enjoy the drama of the big canvases, though the Neues Museum or the Pergamon Panorama may hold younger ones better. Pair the Alte Nationalgalerie with the Neues Museum next door on a Museum Island day ticket, a coffee by the river at Hackescher Markt, and an evening at the Neue Nationalgalerie at the Kulturforum, which picks up the story where this museum leaves off.