Berlin, love it or hate it, but at least it has the merit of not leaving anyone indifferent 🙂
From an early age, I’ve always loved Germany. I owe this to my grandfather and then to my father, who were involved in the twinning association between my home town and Mertingen in Bavaria. As a result, I’ve made many visits to southern Germany.
So it was quite natural for me to choose to learn this language at secondary school. It wasn’t the best idea in the world, as I’ve always had great difficulty understanding their grammar and today, apart from the essential words for living (eat, sleep, drink, sleep…) I’ve clearly lost everything!
Despite this, I soon found myself wanting to learn even more about the country. If you’ve been following my adventures, you’ll know that I recently discovered the Munich Oktoberfest! After that, Berlin also started on my mind. I’d heard so much about it, especially the vintage and alternative aspects. Two words that really made me want to go there 🙂
So when my darling offered me this little weekend (just to please me as he wasn’t at all interested in this one), he really hit the nail on the head!!!! Especially when I discovered that we were going as part of Valentine’s Day! However, I recommend going in fine weather, in spring for example or late summer, as there are lots of places and things to do outdoors.
So we left from Friday morning to Monday lunchtime, and I have to say that the timing was perfect, as two and a half days were more than enough time to visit most of the city’s sights.
We flew fromNantes airport via Easy Jet. In just two hours, we arrived at Berlin Tegel airport (located to the north-west of the city).
From the airport, access to the city center is extremely convenient. Nantes should take a leaf out of your book!
You can buy a “Welcome Card” at the Travelex counter near the exit, for 48 hours to 6 days of your visit (zone AB). It gives you unlimited use of public transport (bus, train, metro, streetcar)! Extremely practical, as the city may be large, but it’s very well served, well into the night.
With your welcome card in hand, you’re off to catch the TXL bus. Berlin Tegel airport doesn’t have a direct metro connection, but it’s very easy to get to by bus. The TXL express bus leaves every 5 to 10 minutes for the Hauptbahnhof.
The X9 express bus also leaves every 5-10 minutes for Bahnhof Zoo via Jakob-Kaiser-Platz (U7) and Ernst-Reuter Platz (U2).
Depending on where your hotel is located, you’ll just have to decide which is more convenient.
Let’s talk about the hotel 🙂 My darling had booked a hotel. It was the Novum Hotel Kronpriz. Apparently the value for money was very good and the breakfast very nice. Admittedly, it’s a 4* hotel that’s a bit old-fashioned, but I found it well located, close to public transport (bus and train), and on weekends, breakfast can be taken until 11am! A real plus, as it enabled us to have a real brunch, and to skip lunches to enjoy the city more.
And when you think of enjoying the city, you think of ideas for routes and visits 🙂
Here’s what we did and what I liked best!
Once we’d left our luggage at the hotel, we set off to discover Berlin’s street-art scene for the first afternoon.
Urban Nation and the area around the East Side Gallery
Before reaching the Friedrichshain district, we made our first stop to visit URBAN NATION,
Start with a stop at URBAN NATION.
Urban Nation, THE street-art museum
Called the Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art, the museum opened in Berlin in September 2017. A logical move, given that the German capital is renowned for the wealth of art on its walls.
The showcase, featuring works by 150 international and local artists, is described as a world first of its kind. Urban Nation is part of the non-profit foundation Berliner Leben, created by the municipal housing company Gewobag.
A former residential building in the Schöneberg district was skilfully transformed to give life to this unique museum. The GRAFT team of architects was commissioned to create a space that would showcase the museum’s collection.
Outside the building, the facades are continually repainted. Once again, the idea is to echo the ever-changing street-art style.
Inside the museum, which is free to enter, you take your time wandering around and stopping in front of the various works on display. I really liked the huge contemporary paintings on display, as well as the plates painted by the various artists.
The museum’s two levels, separated by multicolored staircases, offer different views and perspectives on the works of art on display.
The museum also features a library with a collection of works by guest artists. Legendary photojournalist Martha Cooper, a street-art specialist from the outset, also bequeathed part of her collection of books on the subject. So it’s only natural that this library should bear her name.
Before the tour, we had a bite to eat at Habibi’s Lebanese restaurant. I’d read in some guidebooks that it was the best Lebanese in town 🙂 We were lucky enough to have room and were not disappointed. Falafels and the freshest ingredients, a treat for the taste buds 🙂
Friedrichshain
After this first very fun stop, we took the “old school” yellow metro in the direction of Friedrichshain.
We started with a tour of theRaw Zone“. Another place for street-art lovers, as all the walls are tagged. The RAW-Gelände is Berlin’s cultural center, with a large number of discotheques and outdoor bars. On sunny days, it must be really nice to spend some time there. At the time of our visit, everything was closed, apart from a café, a music school and a skate park, which is really cool for skateboarders who want a place to practice indoors, without scooters, BMXs or rollerblades.
Among the hangars, you can stop off at the world’s smallest nightclub: the télédisko! We tested it by putting in two 2 euro coins 🙂 We selected the mode: one music + photos. We squeezed ourselves into the booth and got our groove on to Bruno Mars’ “Marry Me”! Inside, you can play with smoke and strobes!
We then headed back towards the wall to the magnificent Oberbaumbrucke bridge over the Spree.
After a few pretty shots at the foot of the bridge, we headed for the famous East Side Gallery.
This is one of the largest sections of the wall! On this section, artists from all over the world express their relationship with history. One of these is the famous fresco ” The Kiss” by Russian artist Dimitri Vrubel. This is a reproduction of the photograph taken by Régis Bossu of Leonid Brezhnev (a figure from Communist Russia) and Erich Honecker (a politician from the German Democratic Republic) kissing on October 5, 1979, the thirtieth anniversary of the German Democratic Republic.
After that, I suggest we go for a drink or a hot chocolate, depending on the season, at HOLZMARKT 25, a very surprising place. On the way, we made a small detour to pass the famous underground club ” Berghain “. We didn’t even try to get in during the evening, as the selection is just crazy, and waiting for hours in the cold only to be turned away… no thanks. On the other hand, if you have a gothic style in a long black leather coat, big shoes etc… it’s okay 🙂 For the more curious among you, this is a mythical place, because nobody knows what goes on inside. Cell phones are forbidden, and those who have been inside keep the secret preciously, to prolong the myth…
By the way, for the naughtiest among you, if you’d like to end your wee with a hot one, you can finish your stay by going to the famous KIT KAT Club🙂 The Kitkatclub is a nightclub founded in March 1994 by Austrian pornographic film producer Simon Thaur and his partner Kirsten Krüger. The club quickly became world-famous for its unique concept combining excellent trance and techno music with a certain sexual freedom for its clientele.
Once you’ve reached the door of Holzmarkt 25, you’re in another world, just like in RAW Gelande. The atmosphere is very cool, and must be really nice on sunny days. In fact, we met some very open-minded young Berliners there, eager to exchange ideas.
Stroll around Mitte, the historic center
One day, after a lie-in and a good brunch, is ideal for a walking tour of Mitte, Berlin’s historic center.
Start your journey at Weinmeisterstraße subway station. From there, head to 39 Rosenthalerstrassen to discover an unlikely courtyard: Haus Schwarzenberg. Here again, a street totally in the underground style, with street art everywhere. At the far end of the courtyard, you’ll find the Anne Franck Museum, with a fresco of her likeness. We didn’t visit it, though, as there were obviously no directions in French, and given the fine weather, we preferred to continue our stroll outside and go shopping instead 🙂 Yes, for my birthday, which was a few days earlier, my boyfriend gave me an envelope for a shopping session! Yes, I know, he’s perfect 🙂
So we headed back to the subway station, as the surrounding area was full of cool little clothing stores like Urban Outfitters or other foreign brands like WeekDay, which is Swedish. For fans of second-hand clothes, the Made in Berlin store also offers a wide choice of carefully selected second-hand clothes. I also found the Mitte Garten concept store very cool, featuring a café, limited-edition pieces from H&M and designer collabs.
Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral) and Nikolaiviertel
We then head for theMuseum Island to reach the Berliner Dom. On the way, there’s a lovely view of Berlin’s Fernsehturm. This tower was originally a transmitter for television signals. Fernsehturm is the German word for radio and TV transmitter towers. Today, it supports FM, DAB+ and TV-TNT transmitters. The Fernsehturm stands in the center of Berlin. It is the tallest building in Germany and the fourth-tallest in Europe. In 1969, the year it was built, it was the second-tallest TV tower in the world. It is the second most visited tower in the world, with over a million visitors a year. There’s even a restaurant at the top!
At the foot of the cathedral is the GDR Museum, which retraces the daily lives of Germans living in the GDR before the fall of the Berlin Wall. We decided not to visit it, in favor of the cathedral. But the next day, we found another one, free of charge, at the Kulturbrauerei, retracing the same period.
The Berliner Dom is Berlin’s main Protestant church. Itcosts 7 euros to visit (free for children under 14). I think the interior is really pretty (we like religious monuments) and, above all, you can climb to the top of the dome to enjoy a 360° view of the city.
From here, you can reach the Nikolaiviertel district. In the heart of Berlin, it’s almost as if you were in Bavaria 🙂 This intimate neighborhood of colorful facades was completely destroyed during the war, then rebuilt identically. A must-see, and why not stop for a coffee or a drink?
Finish the day by taking a bus to the famous Checkpoint Charlie and the museum entitled “Topography of Terror”.
Checkpoint Charlie
A very touristy passage, but nonetheless very interesting, as it takes us back into Berlin’s history. You have to imagine this border crossing during the Cold War. It was used to cross the wall separating Berlin into East and West. It was located on Friedrichstraße, on the border between the two districts of Mitte (Soviet) and Kreuzberg (American).
After the souvenir photos, off we go to the Topography of Terrors site (free tour). The Topography Terrors site was home to National Socialist terror headquarters from 1933 to 1945: the Gestapo state secret police (with its own prison), the SS Command, the SS Secret Service (SD) and the General Reich Security Service. It was here that the persecution and destruction of opponents of National Socialism in Germany and abroad took place, and the genocide of Jews and Roma was organized.
The exhibition at the Documentation Center, opened in 2010, traces the history of the site and the institutions of terror that were set up in the immediate vicinity of the Nazi government quarter, as well as the history of their organized crime on a European scale.
Afterwards, if you’re feeling a little hungry, you can try the must-try local specialty: curry wurst. Chunks of sausage in a tomato curry sauce. A treat with pretzels!
To round off the evening, watch the sun set over the Brandenburg Gate. On the way, take time to pay your respects at the Holocaust Memorial. American architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold designed these 2,711 concrete steles . The idea was to perpetuate the memory of the Jewish victims exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
In the evening before heading back to our hotel, we decided to dine at a very cool “cantine” located on the 1st floor of a super cool shopping mall: Bikini Berlin.“Kantini“, inaugurated in January 2018, is very popular with Berliners for eating and drinking. Here you’ll find 14 corners all serving international dishes, from Mexican cuisine to Israeli specialties, Hawaiian poke bowls and Korean cuisine.
A Sunday in Berlin
If you want to live like the Berliners, then for a Sunday day out, I recommend taking the streetcar north to Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district. This is a former alternative district from the 90s, which has now become a bobo district where it’s good to stroll. Head for the Mauerpark. It lies on the former dividing line between East and West. Between March and October, there’s a gigantic flea market, much appreciated by locals and young people who like to extend the previous day’s festivities. I really enjoyed it, especially the sellers of old cameras. If you’re an amateur, you’re bound to find what you’re looking for 🙂
After that, walk down Oderberger Strasse. Many small stores and restaurants are located here, which makes you want to have a second Brunch 🙂
Stop by the Kulturbrauerei and visit the free museum depicting everyday life in the GDR.
Afterwards, if the weather cooperates, take public transport down to the Tempelhof district,best known for its former Berlin-Tempelhof airport. Once the site of Nazi rallies and the Berlin blockade, the airport is now a large park with picnic areas, communal gardens and preserved trails, popular with runners and cyclists alike. The picturesque Fliegerviertel area features colorful terraced houses set in peaceful squares. To the south, the ufaFabrik cultural center hosts plays, concerts and dance performances.
In the evening, I recommend a visit to the Bundestag and its dome. To visit the dome, all you have to do is book well in advance on this website. The Reichstag Palace is a building in Berlin, built to house the Reichstag (Reich Assembly) from 1894 until it burned down on the night of February 27-28, 1933. It has housed the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany since the institutions returned to Berlin in 1999.
Voilou folks! I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip and that it’s inspired you to spend a long romantic weekend in Berlin.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have, and I’ll see you soon for new adventures!
