I’m going to Berlin next week, a spontaneous solo trip I only arranged a couple of weeks ago. I have some holiday to use up, my wife works in a school and can’t have the same time off plus she has no interest in spies or techno, so I’ve booked a cheap flight to a city I’ve long wanted to visit. What shouldn’t I miss?
ATM: what’s good in Berlin?
by 48 Comments
Obviously I’m going to the Ramones museum.
Given that it was 35 years ago when I last went, Checkpoint Charlie museum is a must-see.
I quite enjoyed the Bauhas museum, if you like a bit of weird.
A year after the wall came down, the walk from Ostbanhof through the Brandenburg Gate to the Tiergarten was like that bit where Dorothy clicked her heels and Oz went from black and white to Technocolour. With all the redevelopment since, I don’t suppose it is like that any more.
The stasi Museum – in the old stasi hq is essential. The DDR museum is very superficial and for the tourists.
Charlottenburg Palace for the epic scale and the ballroom.
The Soviet war memorial is also quite breathtaking.
Didn’t get to the Humboldt flak tower maybe ne t time!
Any concert in the Staatsoper on Unter der Linden will be in a concert hall built by Fredrick the Great or the equally magnificent Konzerthaus. You could take out a second mortgage for the Berlin Phil.
The Stasi Museum is amazing. Gorgeous deep square-core decor. . Salutary to see official mug shots of arrested harmless teenage boys in iron maiden shirts and punks. Because communism was so open minded and interested in human rights and the ways of the ordinary person, right kids? They also hassled “Greens”.
Hansa Studios Tour also on my Berlin to do list.
Does Berlin do museums?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_and_galleries_in_Berlin
The new national gallery is a stunning
Mies van der Rohe piece of mid-century modernism.
Son and his girlfriend are just back from five days there. The Stasi museum he says is very interesting and they managed to find a Christmas Market still operating!
Keen to go but the alleged 2 hour border queues etc are putting me off.
Flew to Berlin Brandenburg airport just over a week ago on a Friday night. No queues for passport control, but it’s a long walk from plane to exit.
Thanks that’s reassuring.
I landed last night, honestly, through passport control, picked up case and was in a taxi within 30 mins. Depends on time of day I guess.
I live in Berlin. Feel free to DM with any specific questions- happy to help!
You should definitely do a bit of record shopping in Neukölln / Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. Plenty of great second hand vinyl around if that’s your thing.
Also it’ll be lovely and sunny next week (so far it seems). Amble through tiergarten in the centre. As others have said head out east to the spy museum. The wall memorial on bernauerstrasse also a must see. Checkpoint Charlie is a bit rubbish now unless you want your photo taken with a bored lad dressed in a fake soviet uniform.
Don’t forget to get a doner. Try Imren in neukolln
Enjoy!
I’ll be in Neukölln in April – can you be more specific about where to get second hand vinyl & CDs please!
These are all worth checking out – some have second hand
Around Bergmannstr in K’berg you have a few second hand music stores:
Logo (for more trad rock)
holys hit records (everything)
sound vinyl store
marla
My favourite second hand shop is galactic supermarkt record shop (warschauerstr/frankfurter tor) – ask the guy nicely and he’ll let you in to a bonkers Aladdin’s cave of super rarities behind the main shop!
Bis aufs Messer in Friedrichshain
Coretex Records in Kreuzberg
Dodo Beach in Schöneberg
Dussmann – Das KulturKaufhaus in Friedrichstr/Mitte. Huge dept store with big new CD/vinyl dept
HHV Records in Friedrichshain
Moon Dance in Wedding
Musicland Berlin in Spandau
Oldschool in Charlottenburg
O-ton / A&V Records in Neukölln (near Hermannplatz)
Rock Steady Records Berlin in Charlottenburg
Rough Trade in Neukölln
Soultrade Recordstore in Neukölln
The Beauty and the Beat in Spandau
*saves page for future reference*
Oh my! Thanking you!
well, this is invaluable. Thank you! HHV in particular looks to be very close to where I’m staying
You may also be interested to know that a shopping trip to Galactic Supermarket appears in the documentary about the making of the last Blood Incantation album. From 5:06 here, including the back room!
I don’t suppose for your next trick you could do bars or veggie food places? Ideally on the East side, and ones where you wouldn’t feel out of place on your own…
Oh absolutely- I’ll post some ideas tomorrow!
ah that’s amazing! The back room is ridiculously good fun.
A phrase that applies equally to some of Berlin’s more popular nightclubs.
Berlin? I’ve been there twice, but not for a long time. Zu weit weg. The AW, however, keeps on going there:
2015
2018
2019
2023(1)
2023(2)
2025
There may be a few tips in those posts. Viel Spass!
ah, so it seems I am actually the last AWer to visit Berlin….
Fear not, KD – I have never visited Berlin, and you will certainly be there before me…
First, Fitterstoke, Manhattan
Our son lives in Berlin and we try and go at least once a year . Whatever you do and like others have said there is loads to see I’m sure you will have a fantastic time . I recommend the numerous beer gardens. Have a fantastic time .
Design Panoptikon, Poststraße 7 Berlin 10178
I keep recommending this place, but as far as I know nobody has ever taken me up on it. Extraordinary collection of weird and wonderful industrial artefacts from the C20. There’s nothing like it.
https://www.berlin.de/en/museums/6503719-3104050-designpanoptikum-surreal-museum-for-indu.en.html
this does actually look very good, will try to get there. I think I might skip the Disgusting Food Museum though.
Cinema Museum is fab – https://www.berlin.de/en/museums/3176755-3104050-deutsche-kinemathek-film-television.en.html
Stasi Museum (as recommended) is great, but very grim – it’s like visiting the Motherwell Council Housing Offices.
Ramones Museum – deeply moving for devotees like me.
Bauhaus Museum wonderful, too
Bowie Walking Tour – that takes you from Hansa, round some sights and ends up at the flat he lived in. That was a splendid afternoon
I’ve never been to Berlin, although I’d love to go. Mini Paws is off on a school trip later this month, so I have paid for a trip to Berlin, none of which I suspect is of any use to you. My friend, who does a lot of rock tours, suggests that the Ojo de agua restaurant is great for steak and wine lovers. It’s owned by the Swiss band Yello, which doesn’t really explain why it’s an Argentinian themed restaurant in the German capital.
Went there almost a year ago for a significant birthday. Another vote for the Stasi museum, fascinating and gruesome at the same time. We did a walking tour (second world war based) which was excellent…think it was Insider Tours, started off near Checkpoint Charlie (which is a bit of a let down) . We pushed the boat out and had a meal in the dome of the Reichstag…oh and the beer isn’t bad.
The Reichstag does a tour which needs booking well in advance, not expensive.
I went about three years ago, and all the advice here is spot on. You’ll have a brilliant time.
In addition, if you fancy a bit of a break from the hustle and bustle of the big city it’s well worth getting a train and bus out to Potsdam, where the famous treaty was signed. It’s a city that doesn’t feel like one, a very pleasant day trip south west of Berlin to a UNESCO world heritage area of palaces and gorgeous parkland. It made a really good change in the middle of a very busy week when we went.
Depends of you’ve got the budget, but the restaurant at the top of the TV tower is awesome.
The DDR Museum is a good pootle (get there early), the Checkpoint Charlie Museum goes on remarkably longer than you think it might, The East Side Gallery is a splendid bit of wall, but quite the hike from the centre, there’s an underground train out to The Olympic Stadium which is also worth an mule, and if you’re headed out to the Russian memorial park, there’s a lovely leafy walk to the Victory Column, which is a steep climb, but yields an impressive view over the city.
We ate Italian at the Ristorante Sale et Tabacchi, near Checkpoint Charlie, who very impressively sold us a single after dinner fag from under the counter.
I endorse Skirky on the TV tower restaurant – it revolves 360° at a very sedate pace as you dine, so you get to see the whole of Berlin below you.
And it’s in the old East Germany too, is it not? Not that you’d really know apart from the concrete
Yes, there’s a certain Ossie charm to the design and interior decor though it’s (gulp) now 17 years since I was there for that experience (40th birthday).
By the way, for the alternative fashion-conscious, I’d recommend a visit to the Trippen shoe factory outlet. https://www.trippen.com/t/men
They make very individual and Goth-friendly footwear with an environmentally-sustainable and socially-aware approach. I’m still wearing my Trippen boots which I bought from that trip to Berlin – very hard- wearing and good quality.
@salwarpe
Yes, sorry you’re right. I came across a bit sniffy there. It’s definitely an interesting place.
No need to apologise. German architecture can be as terrible and as brilliant as anything in the UK. A large part of Bonn is dominated by a fuck-off massive concrete Stadthaus/City Hall, that nobody but the Germans imposed on themselves. Berlin benefits from British architecture for the reconstructed Reichstag, but the ‘architects’ of the RAF did as much to ‘remodel’ the centre of Cologne into an NCP car park as the Luftwaffe Architekten left as a legacy for Coventry.
I went up the Victory Column (Tiergarten) in 1991. Or rather, I had an attack of vertigo part-way up and came back down, but the American backpacker I was with went up, and said the views were lovely.
Is that the one heavily featured in Wings of Desire?
Yep. Thankfully you didn’t see the colour drain from Bruno Ganz’s face as his palms started to sweat, knees turned to jelly, and he started hyperventilating. That was just me.
At least I didn’t have to pay to go up (in) it. €5 now, I think.
There’s an American backpacker in Wings of Desire!?
thanks everybody!
@kid-dynamite
Public transport is dead easy in Berlin. You can buy tickets from stations and some shops (think) which will allow you to go on trains (over and underground) trams and buses so you can literally hop on anything. Pretty sure you can get daily tickets, 3 day ones , weekly ones etc.
They’re not valid on the Trainline from the airport if I recall correctly but there are also plenty of decent price taxis.
From the airport terminal you can buy an ABC-zone ticket [basically like a zone 1-5 ticket in London] that’ll get you into the city centre
Ah, thanks @slotbadger, I must have , erm, misremembered!
I drunkenly went into a record shop in Berlin determined to buy a David Hasselhoff record as he brought down the wall.. was shocked to find only one there, a collection of his covers of famous songs
The girl behind the counter looked at me like I was insane. But I bought it. It’s beyond awful
Good thread this, I’m checking flights for when the weather isn’t quite so depressing.
It’s lovely this week!