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Updated 19 January 2005
This is by no means a comprehensive guide to Berlin; you can get that by buying a book about the city. The only reason I'm writing this stuff down is because I get a fair few emails from visitors to the site asking me which bars or shops are good places to go. So instead of wracking my brain every time I reply to one of those emails, I thought I'd write it all down in one place. Here. The Flip Flop Flyin' Guide to Berlin. Here's a printable version. 1. BASIC INFO 1a. Getting to Berlin 1b. Staying in Berlin 1c. Travelling around 1d. Districts 1e. Useful magazines 1f. The English language 1g. Umlauts and commas 1h. The weather 2. FOOD & DRINK 2a. Where to drink alcohol 2b. Where to drink coffee 2c. Where to eat 3. ENTERTAINMENT 3a. Going to concerts 3b. Going dancing 3c. Watching films 3d. TV and radio 3e. Sex with prostitutes 3f. Goths 4. SPORT 4a. Playing sports 4b. Watching live sport 4c. Live football 4d. Televised football 5. CULTURAL STUFF 5a. Arty Places 5b. Museums in Berlin 6. SHOPPING 6a. Books 6b. Records/CDs/DVDs 6c. Clothes 6d. Markets, flea or otherwise 6e. Supermarkets 7. SIGHTSEEING & OTHER OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES 7a. Stand at the bottom of the Fernsehturm and look up 7b. Have a look around Tempelhof airport 7c. Little memorial plaques in the ground 7d. The Sowjetisches Ehrenmal 7e. Dorotheenstädtische Friedhof 7f. A day trip to Potsdam 7g. Find a park and sit down 8. USEFUL LINKS 8a. Actually useful 8b. Bloggy stuff 9. FOOTNOTE 1. BASIC INFO Berlin is a nice place. There's lots to do here; lots of historical stuff to see; a good nightlife; shopping galore. But, it's worth doing a bit of research before you come here. 1a. Getting to Berlin Aeroplanes, trains and buses all come to Berlin. Which is handy. You could also come by car if you fancy some autobahn action. 1b. Staying in Berlin You could stay in a hotel. Or a hostel. Or if you know someone here, they might let you sleep on their sofa. 1c. Travelling around There are four types of transport you're likely to use: the U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams and buses (there's also a ferry, but unless you really want to, you're unlikely to use it). Both the U- and S-Bahn are trains that go underground and overground. When you buy a ticket on a U- or S- Bahn platform, you need to stamp it in the little yellow boxes (older ones are red, though) next to the ticket machines, otherwise if you get inspected they'll get pissy with you. I've had unstamped tickets before, and never been fined, but it's up to you. I usually play the "I don't speak German, I'm a tourist" card and so far it's all been okay. The benefit of not stamping your ticket is you can re-use it. Every now and again, some Satan-worshipping low-life plain-clothes inspectors will get on the train and shout loudly "Farhshein bitte". Other passengers will groan. Feel free to groan too. But you have to show these people your ticket. If you've decided not to buy a ticket, and get inspected by one of these chaps, they will want to see your Ausweis (ID Card) or passport. Depending on how brave you are, you could try and run away. I've got away once without a ticket, but I've also been caught once trying this method, so it's up to you. You could also get a taxi. In Berlin they are all a pale beige-y colour. Not all the drivers speak English, so learn these words: links = left, rechts = right, gerade aus = straight on. They will, of course, be listening to some god-awful radio station as they take you somewhere. 1d. Districts Unless you have specific reasons to go elsewhere, you'll probably only go to three or four different areas of Berlin. There's Mitte, which is the central area of the old East Berlin. Nowadays, this is quite a hip area that with each passing day becomes more commercial and touristy. There's nice stuff there, and you'll probably do lots of things there, but there's more to Berlin than Mitte. Just to the north of Mitte is Prenzlauer Berg. This is where I live. It's very nice here. It's less polished than Mitte, and you can't move for folks with prams. Freidrichshain is to the east of Mitte. I don't go here much, but if you're into GDR architecture, there's some cracking examples along Karl Marx Allee. If you wanna do some sort of pub crawl, Simon Dach Strasse here is a good option. Kreuzberg is the only district I'll mention that's in what was West Berlin. Nice and lively down there, a good mix of arty, punky, and Turkish people. I will try to list places to go in each district as often as possible in the sections below, but as you will notice, I rarely venture to the western side of Berlin, so I'm not going to pretend I know where to go over there. 1e. Useful magazines If you speak German, you could check local Time Out-style things, Tip or Zitty. If you don't, there's a monthly magazine in English called Ex-Berliner. The design is awful, some of the writing is ropey, but it's got all the info you need for concerts, clubs, exhibitions, etc. 1f. The English language Although a lot of people in Berlin do speak English: beware! you're not in Amsterdam now, captain. Bars and restaurants in central areas should be fine, but the further out you go, (especially in an easterly direction), the less people speak English. If you're just here on holiday, though, all you really need to learn is the polite words (bitte, danke schön), emergency sentences (Wo bist die Sex Kino, bitte?), and the names of foods (Lachs = salmon, Kaviar = caviar, Trüffel = truffle). 1g. Umlauts and commas You'll possibly come across things spelled slightly differently sometimes. That's because if, for one reason or another, "they" don't want to use the umlaut (the dots above certain letters) they'll replace it with an extra 'e'. For example, 'danke schön' can also be 'danke schoen'. You should bear this in mind when looking at street maps. Prices in Berlin are seperated with commas instead of full stops. So one euro and 20 cents looks like this: €1,20 1h. The weather It's less varied here than, say, the UK. When the summer arrives, it tends to stick around solidly without many rainy interludes. The summer of 2003 was about four months of cloudless skies and sweltering heat. Spring is a lovely time to be in Berlin. You'll see that people are really happy, sitting at pavement cafes; playing hackysack in parks; generally loving life. The winter is the same as summer in reverse: several months of grey coldness with the occassional flurry of snow. top 2. FOOD & DRINK A lot of the places I will mention here cross over the booze/coffee/food borders, but I've tried to list them by the way I've primarily used them in the past. There's no way this list of places could be comprehensive, so I really am just gonna mention those that I like a lot. 2a. Where to drink alcohol People in Germany like beer. Therefore there's thousands of places to go and drink beer. One thing to note in CAPITAL LETTERS, and this is for you Brits out there, pubs don't close at 11.30pm, so don't go out at seven and get hammered as quickly as possible; there's so much more to enjoy if you drink at a nice leisurely pace. Cake (Schlesische Str. 32, Kreuzberg) Nice cocktails (esp. their White Russians), nice music, nice furniture, nice complementary Erdussflips! Ankerklause (Kottbusser Damm 104, Kreuzberg) It's a boat! On land! It's next to a canal, and it's always dead busy whenever I go there. Get a table, and you'll be a lucky blighter. Freischwimmer (Vor dem Schlesischen Tor 2a, Kreuzberg) This is very popular in the summer, cos it's next to water. It's very nice way to spend an evening. Kaffe Burger (Torstrasse 60, Mitte) Quite an odd place this. One of the first bars I went to when I moved to Berlin. An old man got up on stage and started singing that night. It seems that such things aren't uncommon. 8mm Bar (Schönhauser Allee 177b, Prenzlauer Berg) Small, busy, plays indie music (at least it has done everytime I've ever been there). Wohnzimmer (Lettestrasse 6, Prenzlauer Berg) Über-cool place these days, but nice enough. Dr. Pong (Eberswalder Strasse 21, Prenzlauer Berg) Not only can you drink beer, you can play table tennis. and on Mondays at 9pm, they show arty/indie English-language films for free. Yay. 2b. Where to drink coffee Until a couple of years ago, Starbucks was unknown in Berlin. Then one opened up. Like measles in a classroom, it spread very quickly. There's now loads of them. Avoid them. You know why. If you're visiting Berlin, you should try a nice local coffee shop with mis-matched furniture, local people, and real coffee, not just warm coffee-flavoured milkshakes. Several of the cafes mentioned are within spitting distance of my flat. I make no apologies for this, a good cafe SHOULD be local. Fräulein Smillas (Pappelallee 63, Prenzlauer Berg) My local cafe, so I'm a bit biased. They sell second hand books too and have exhibitions and it's run by a very lovely couple. Impala (Pappelallee 1, Prenzlauer Berg) Excellent coffee made from the beans that they, y'know, crush, themselves on the premises. It's kinda an on-the-go place, rather than sitting-around-for-hours type of place. Possibly the friendliest staff this side of Jesus cults. Marietta (Stargarder Strasse 13, Prenzlauer Berg) Very stylish indeed. I don't often go in there, cos I'm not really cool enough, judging by the folks who sit at the tables next to the window. Bateau Ivre (Oranienstrasse 18, Kreuzberg) Good food and beer too. Nice view of Kreuzberg life. All in all, everything you could want from a cafe. Barcomi's (Bergmannstr 21, Kreuzberg and Sophienstr. 21, Mitte) Mmmmmm, cheesecake. Brilliant sandwiches, too. A good lively place to see your hangover off with. Balzac (lots of them, all over the place) If you fancy the Starbucks experience, Berlin-style, then Balzac is the place to go. Same set-up, really, just better coffee. 2c. Where to eat Although it's better than it was when I first came here, if you're a vegetarian, Berlin isn't overly well equipped. You'll find good stuff, but it's probably a bit more of a challenge. I'm not a vegetarian so I can't give you any tips, sadly. Restaurants: Prater Garten (Kastanienallee 7, Prenzlauer Berg) Super food, always nice and busy, and, in the summer, the added bonus of a friggin' huge beer garden. Austria (Bergmannstrasse 30, Kreuzberg) Famous, of course, for being the restaurant mentioned in Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex". Proper German, well, Austrian actually, food here. Nice big dark tables and loads of skulls on the wall. Schwarzenraben (Neue Schönhauser Strasse 13, Mitte) I had THE most delicious buffalo mozarella here and saw a famous German telly star on the same night. Everything on the menu here looks delicious. Abendmahl (Muskauer Strasse 9, Kreuzberg) My ex-girlfriend always says that this place is where you should go if you want to tell your parents that you're gay. I've never had a main course here, but the desserts are divine. Just look at these. They're so pretty and really delicious. You gotta go. Drei (Lychener Str. 30, Prenzlauer Berg) I'm not really a fan of steak, but the one I had in this slightly upmarket-y place was excellent. White Trash Fast Food (Torstrasse 201, Mitte) I've only put this in the food section cos I ate a fantastic burger here once. And the onion rings rule, too. But this place is more than a restaurant, it seems to be one of the coolest places in Berlin. Bands and DJs are regularly here. Apparently the Pet Shop Boys, Mick Jagger and Motörhead have all hung out here at one time or another. Due Forni (Schönhauser Allee 12, Prenzlauer Berg) Italian food. Utterly superb pizzas. I saw a bloke complain once in there: he looked like an idiot, anyway. Fast food: Should you really want to, there's plenty of fast food available here. The usual McBurger King stuff is all over the place. Finding a slice of pizza isn't too tough. But skip those and have stuff that Berlin does quite well: kebabs and curry wurst. Any Brits used to kebabs will probably be shocked to know that they are different here, and quite tasty indeed. Curry wurst seems to be a bit of a Berlin speciality. It's basically this: a sausage chopped up and coated in curry-ish sauce. Sounds rotten, huh? But it's not, it's actually tasty. If you happen to be around Alexanderplatz, you'll see Grillwalkers. These are chaps (usually men, anyway) dressed in orange, with an orange umbrella over their heads and some odd tray thing attached to them where they grill bratwurst. He'll ask you if you want "ketchup oder senf"; That's ketchup or mustard. top 3. ENTERTAINMENT Lots to do, lots to do! There's opera, ballet, poetry and stuff, but I'm quite sure you don't really care about that sort of stuff, so... 3a. Going to concerts Berlin is a good place to see a band. As a British person who likes a lot of British bands, it's often better to see them here that it would be to see them at home, because sometimes they'll be playing in a lot smaller venues here that, say, in London. There'll be lots of posters around town for concerts, but for specific details, check the mags listed above. 3b. Going dancing I have absolutely no idea about such things. All I know is that if you like indie-ish music, there's something called Karrera Klub, which is in different venues on different nights; and it's meant to be quite good. 3c. Watching films Berlin has loads of cinemas. If you wanna see German films or non-German films dubbed into German, you'll have no trouble finding anywhere. If, however, you want to see a film in its original language, there's just a few places to go. By far the easiest place is the CineStar Originals in the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz. Virtually all films shown there are in English, some of them have German subtitles, too (just in case you go there with a native). If you wanna give your money to a small independent cinema, you could try one of these: Babylon Berlin (Dresdener Strasse 126, Kreuzberg) A nice place with, i think, three screens. Usually have the latest stuff, a nice mix of arty and blockbusty stuff. Moviemento (Kottbusser Damm 22, Kreuzberg) There was a time when they always seemed to be showing The Matrix for some reason, but they often have quirky films that most other kinos don't have. FSK (Segitzdamm 2, Kreuzberg) I really like this place, they show great films, and it was the first cinema I ever went to in Berlin. Hackesche Hoefe Berlin (Rosenthaler Strasse 40/41, Mitte) Lots of stairs to climb. Good for the occasional German film with English subtitles. Neues Off (Hermannstra§e 20, Neukölln) Very lovely looking place. One screen. Worth the trip if it's showing something you want to see. 3d. TV and radio Both should be used selectively. For one thing, there's loads of adverts on telly and radio. For another, the quality of both isn't up to much. Any English language TV shows you adore will have been butchered by the use of dubbing. Most radio is awful, but Radio Eins is quite good. They play songs humans will like, not just taxi drivers and your mum. 3e. Sex with prostitutes in Berlin What you do with your clothes off is no concern of mine, but should you be wanting to enjoy some professional ladies, you'll see lots of them stood next to parked cars along Oranienburger Strasse in Mitte. They look like robot sex dolls from the future. I, of course, have no idea how it all works and how much it costs, but what I do know is if you're male and walking down that street at a certain time of night, it's like a slalom course of sex offers. Like your mum said, you shouldn't talk to strangers. 3f. Goths Dark knights, you are not alone. Berlin will welcome you to it's cold goth-y busom. There's cheap wine, shops that sell huge boots and very long coats, tattoo parlours and cemeteries, ie. all you could possibly need. top 4. SPORT Like everywhere, sport is popular here. 4a. Playing sports If you fancy playing sport, there are several sports centres and indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Table tennis fans should bring their bats and balls as tables are all over the place (in parks, next to chidren's play areas, on random street corners...). There's also a lot of parks, so having a kick about is possible in virtually all areas of Berlin. If you fancy swimming in lakes, that's easy too. Just look at a map, look for the blue areas and usually, you can swim there. If doing sports and drinking beer at the same time is your thing, then bowling is probably your sport. Berlin has quite a lot of bowling alleys. The undisputed heavyweight champion of bowling alleys is Neue City Bowling (Hasenheide 108, Neukölln). The lanes are great there, and accordingly, it's not particularly cheap. A cheap bowling place is SEZ Bowling Center (Danziger Strasse 12, Friedrichshain), where you get charged by the hour per lane; not by game per person. 4b. Watching live sport There's an ice hockey team here (Eisbären Berlin), and an American football team (Berlin Thunder), and if you visit in January, there's a great thing called the 6 Tage Rennen, which is six days of cycling in a veledrom. I didn't think it would be fun, but then I went a couple of years ago, and it's great: you just drink beer and watch sinewy chaps pelt around the track and then do that weird thing where they slow down and almost come to a complete stop before one of them bolts off to try and win. There's also some sort of international tennis thingy, but I can't remember when that is. 4c. Live football Plenty of choices here. Hertha BSC Berlin They're in the top division in Germany and play at the rather splendid Olympiastadion. You'll know that place from those old films of Jesse Owen winning gold medals and Hitler watching stuff at the 1936 Olympics. It's recently been modernised, and I've not been inside since then, but it does look quite impressive. One great thing about the place is that the stadium is half sunk into the ground, ie. pitch level is beneath the level you walk in at. They also have an amateur team in the same division as... 1. FC Union Berlin Pronounced more like Onion Berlin, this team play out in the sticks. They're currently in the Regionalliga Nord, which, I think, is like the 3rd division, northern section. It's a fair trip to get there, and the quality of football is a bit iffy, but if you're a nutter and like going to odd stadiums, try this one, cos it's in the middle of a forest. You actually have to walk through some woods to get to it. No concrete paths or anything, just muddy tracks. Union seems to be the team of choice for lots of young hipsters. Dynamo Berlin They won everything in the old East German league, being the Stasi team, but now they're in one of the lower divisions (Oberliga NOFV-Nord) and seem to have got themselves a bit of a problem with unsavoury fans. I've never seen them play for this reason. Tennis Borussia Berlin I've never seen this lot either, and they also play in the Oberliga NOFV-Nord. But their home kit is purple. Reason enough, I think, to maybe check them out. There's a couple more teams that I know virtually nothing about: Berliner AK 07 and Türkiyemspor Berlin 1978. Both teams play in the aforementioned Oberliga NOFV-Nord. 4d. Televised football If it's German football you want to watch, or European competitions in which a german team is playing, you'll be able to watch in lots of pubs. A sure sign is when you see the word "Premiere" illuminated in the window, cos that's the channel that shows the games. If you want to watch English (and occasionally Scottish or Spanish) teams playing, pick one of the Irish pubs. The Oscar Wilde (Friedrichstrasse 112a, Mitte) and The Old Emerald Isle (Erkelenzdamm 49, Kreuzberg) are both good; The Oscar Wilde having a huge screen, and The Emerald Isle having delicious food. There's also an enormo-pub in the Europa Center near Ku'damm, which I've only been to once, and even then I just walked in, looked around, then walked out again a couple of minutes later. top 5. CULTURAL STUFF Bad weather? Then get some culture, homeboy. 5a. Arty Places There are plenty of smaller galleries, but I'm just gonna list the big ones where there's likely to be more blockbuster-y type shows on. Neue Nationalgalerie (Potsdamer Strasse 50, Tiergarten) The place where the big stuff happens. Past shows include a Warhol retrospective and a selection of stuff on loan from MOMA. Bahaus Archiv (Klingelhöfer Strasse 14, Tiergarten) As the name suggests, an archive of Bauhaus stuff. Hamburger Bahnhof (Invalidenstra§e 50- 51, Mitte) Modern stuff mainly. Fairly big place. At the moment (well, right now, January 2005) there's a thing called The Flick Collection going on there which is, erm, interesting. Martin-Gropius-Bau (Niederkirchnerstrasse 7, Mitte) Only been here once or twice, but it's quite grand and enjoyable in there. Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin (Unter den Linden 13-15, Mitte) Quite small, but has some good interesting shows now and again. I think, but I'm not sure, it's free on Mondays. A good trick for sneaking in for free on any day, is to tell the security guard who'll check for a ticket that you just want to go in the shop. Once you go in the shop, stay in there for a while, then slip out back into the main gallery. Boom! free art viewing! 5b. Museums in Berlin If you want old stuff to look at, helpfully, there's a place called the Museuminsel (Museum Island) just off Unter den Linden in Mitte. It is an island, where the River Spree splits in two for a short while. On this chunk of land you'll find the Pergamon, the Altes Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie and the Bodesmuseum. There's a day spent for you. Also: Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (Friedrichstrasse 44, Mitte) This place documents Berlin when it was East and West. Lots of exhibits and stories about the Wall and people trying to escape the GDR. Thoroughly engrossing. Museum für Naturkunde (Invalidenstrasse 43, Mitte) Fundamentalist Christians: skip this one, or keep your eyes shut as you walk past the huge Brachiosaurus skeleton on display in the first part of the museum you go into. Other stuff of note: lots of pretty butterflies. Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin (Trebbiner Strasse 9, Kreuzberg) A fun place to visit. Especially if you like old trains. But in the building next to the trains there's stuff about optical illusions and playing with sounds and stuff, which kept me amused for hours. There's also a windmill. top 6. SHOPPING Shops in Berlin are virtually always closed on Sundays and public holidays. apart from bakeries and small general stores (generally those run by Turks or other immigrants). Very few shops are open after 8pm. Basic rule of thumb is, if you wanna buy something, do it in the day time. 6a. Books To be honest I only use a couple of books shops. The main one is Dussmann (Friedrichstrasse 90, Mitte). It's got a pretty big English language section and incredibly unfriendly cashiers. A nice second hand shop is Saint Georges (Wörtherstrasse 27, Prenzlauer Berg). Lots of English language stuff and friendly staff. 6b. Records/CDs/DVDs If you want a big shop you can browse in for ages, try Dussmann (Friedrichstrasse 90, Mitte) or Saturn (Alexanderplatz 8, Mitte), cos they're fairly large and have a decent selection of stuff for reasonable prices. If you like your record shops to be small and special: Mr Dead & Mrs Free (Bülowstrasse 5, Schöneberg) This is my favourite record shop in Berlin. It's a bit pricey, but it gets lots of American and Brit stuff imported. Good for re-issues, country and indie stuff. Hard Wax (Paul-Lincke-Ufer 44a, Kreuzberg) Should you want something techno-y or dance-y, this is a good place to go. It looks sufficiently hard and waxy inside, too. Da Capo (Kastanienallee 96, Prenzlauer Berg) A cracking shop for second hand stuff. Not over priced, as I remember, and I've found a fair few bargains, too. Space Hall (Zossenerstrasse 33, Kreuzberg) The sort of place where you'll go, "Ooh, I've been looking for that for aaaaages". Scratch (Kottbusser Damm 15, Kreuzberg) You have to leave your bag behind the counter here, but it's a fairly decent independent shop. Friendly staff, apart from the bloke who looks like the owner who's a bit surly. 6c. Clothes You're asking the wrong person, I have no idea. I see clothes shops: I shudder with fear. But rest assured, fashion fans, there's lots ot buy here: trousers, shirts, t-shirts, underwear, shoes, handbags, all that sort of stuff. 6d. Markets, flea or otherwise These are usually just open at the weekend. As with all markets, getting there early is a good idea. Behind Ostbahnhof train station, Freidrichshain This one's quite good for bargaining. A few professional blokes there, but they'll mainly be open for a bit of bartering. Good for more antique-y looking stuff. Near the Pergamon Museum, Mitte Full of pro flea market dudes. Try haggling for a Supertramp album and they'll look at you like you've just tried to buy their children on behalf of a paedophile. But there's lots of nice old books and stuff, a few shops selling ethnic-y wooden sculptures of people with big cocks, and the rather depressing stalls selling dead old people's medals. Arkona Platz, Prenzlauer Berg Full of normal folk selling stuff. Scarily, these sort of places have become less like the friendly places of old where you could get a bargain, and more full of steely-eyed eBay addicts who think every crappy toy car they've bashed into the skirting board a million times is a collector's item. Boxhagener Platz, Freidrichshain Like the above, just in a different area of town. Next to Mauer Park on Eberswalder Strasse, Prenzlauer Berg Again, like above. Pushkin Allee, Treptow This is about half way between Schlesische Tor U-Bahn and Treptower Park S-Bahn stations. It rocks if you want a TV remote control or some plumbing equipment. In amongst all that stuff, you may find some records, books, clothes or old tat that is either very cool or suitable ironic for your hipster lifestyle. Kollwitz Platz, Prenzlauer Berg Only around on Saturday, this one is a good place to buy groceries if you're self-catering here. Beware of the prams. 6e. Supermarkets Aaah, the bane of my life: german supermarkets. The word 'super' should be eradicated in most cases, as most of them are anything but. Very few supermarkets seem to have good quality fresh fruit and veg. Even fewer have any semblence of interior design going on. Fewer still have friendly and helpful staff. The quality of service in Berlin's supermarkets is nothing short of atrocious. For prime examples of the above go into any Plus, Netto, Aldi or Kaiser's. The one exception to the rule seems to be Extra, which have all of the above; but even then, some of the staff will still be surly. top 7. SIGHTSEEING & OTHER OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES There is lots of stuff to satisfy your tourist-y needs. Of course you'll go to the Brandenburger Tor, of course you'll go to see the Reichstag (don't be fooled by the big queue, they let loads of people in in big chunks, so it's not as bad as it looks), and of course you'll want to see The Wall (there's a nice long stretch of it just across the road from Ostbahnhof station), but there's more to Berlin than that. Like these things for example: 7a. Stand at the bottom of the Fernsehturm and look up You can't miss it. It's the big tower with the ball on the top. If you know your way back to your hotel from there, you'll never get lost, cos you can see it from nearly everywhere in Berlin. It's quite cool inside too; you can go to the top and look out over Berlin. Don't go in there on your first day, though; it's good to go up there when you've seen some of the other landmarks at ground level before you look at it from the sky, cos then you can go, "ooh look, darling, that's [insert Berlin landmark here] where we were this morning and you pinched my bum and that old couple saw you do it and gave us a filthy look". There's a restaurant up there which does okay food, I imagine it was quite posh in Communism days. The restaurant revolves, though, so it's nice to sit there and take in the view at a slow pace. You might have to queue at busier times, but I'd suggest trying to go up there just before dusk, cos you can see the city in daylight and as you revolve things will turn dark and you'll see Berlin at night. 7b. Have a look around Tempelhof airport If you're lucky enough to have flown into Tempelhof, life is sweet. If not, try and make the trip if you fancy looking at some top quality architecture. It was built before the Nazis came along, but there's a feeling about the place that made me feel I was in a World War II film. Lots of dark wood and high ceilings. As a working airport, though, it's pretty shoddy, and it seems it might be closed down soon. 7c. Little memorial plaques in the ground Not sure of the exact name for these things, but as you walk around (mainly, as far as I've noticed in Mitte and Kreuzberg), you may notice little bronze squares set into the cobble stones. They all seem to have the names of Jews killed by the Nazis on them. A nice discreet reminder of what went on here in the past. 7d. The Sowjetisches Ehrenmal Not the Soviet Memorial near Brandenburger Tor; there's another one in Treptower Park, which is a bit off the beaten track, but you can get there quite easily using the S-bahn. It's about the size of a football pitch, a big open space with big statues, stone carvings of Communist type stuff. Over 300,000 Soviets died in the Batte of Berlin in 1945, 5,000 of them are buried here. This is one of my favourite places in Berlin. 7e. Dorotheenstädtische Friedhof This is eastern Berlin's high class cemetery. A quick walk around is like a Who's Who of German famousness: Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich Mann, Helene Weigel, and Paul Dessau amongst them. It's on Chausseestrasse in Mitte. 7f. A day trip to Potsdam Potsdam is a seperate place, it's not just a district of Berlin. It's also really really nice there. The main reason for going there is to go to Sanssouci, the palace and gardens of Frederick The Great. There's so much lovely stuff to see when you walk around here, it really is a joy. Another super thing to see in Potsdam, if you enjoy a bit of history, is Schloss Cecilienhof. This is where the Postdam Conference took place in 1945, confirming the stuff agreed at Yalta about the postwar European order. 7g. Find a park and sit down There's lots of parks in and around Berlin. Berliners like parks, and when it's sunny, they use them. People do allsorts in these parks and they are generally nice places to be. Beware, though, there will be at least one knobhead with a guitar in the park. If you're really unlucky, they'll have a mate with bongos. top 8. USEFUL LINKS Just a small selection of what are probably the most useful sites you could visit before or during your trip. And some blogs which might give you a bit of flavour of what it's like to live here. 8a. Actually useful Maps: http://www.stadtplandienst.de Public transport: http://www.fahrinfo-berlin.de Tourist Information: http://www.berlin-tourist-information.de/index.html.en Film times and stuff: http://www.zitty.de Helpful English site: http://www.exberliner.com Embassies: http://www.berlinfo.com/Worktime/Authorities/embassies German news: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,1595,266,00.htm General Berlin info: http://www.berlinfo.com/index.htm 8b. Bloggy stuff Andrew & Heather's Berlin Guide: http://www.heyotwell.com/guides/berlin/ Berlin Blog: http://berlin.typepad.com/berlin_blog Spreeblick (in German): http://www.spreeblick.com/blog/index.php Raskal Trippin: http://raskal.blogspot.com Heroes & Villains: http://www.livejournal.com/~margins_of Kiwi in Berlin: http://kiwiinberlin.blogspot.com Hem Mungen: http://www.hemmungen.com top 9. FOOTNOTE As I mentioned at the beginning, this is not meant to be a comprehensive guide. Everything written above is my own opinion. If I've missed stuff, it's probably because, a) I forgot about it, or, b) I don't know anything about it (ie. where to buy scorching-hot reggae records). I hope you have a nice time here. top | |