The Berlin Botanical Gardens and Museum are a place Jenny and I visited once before, back in September. It was beautiful then, when the outdoor plants were alive with color and the greenhouses shimmered against the sun. Now, however, the only attraction is the greenhouses. When we went on Thursday morning, the temperature outside was 34 degrees, with a wind chill of 28 degrees. But inside it was a balmy 85 degrees.
At the botanical gardens, there is an indoor section for every continent of the globe. South American rainforests, Sub-Asian mountains, African plains, Southwestern deserts -- it's all represented here and in separate environments.
But plants are not the only thing you'll find at the botanical gardens. There are also koi ponds and, amazingly, a deep-sea aquarium that is maintained year-round. At the center of the aquarium itself is a coral reef, itself a giant organism surrounded by hundreds of brightly colored fish from bluish white damselfish and yellow tangs to orange frogfish and yellow-mouthed triggerfish. In the aquarium there are many windows to view the coral reef, but it so vast it is hard to get a good perspective from all angles.
