Hey

Im off to berlin on Sunday, and I know quite a few of you have been to Berlin, and I want to know what you recommend to see and do??

I have been once before but i was about 12/13, and it was a school trip so pretty restrictive.

We are there from Sunday morning until Wednesday night, so 4ish days.

Ive just convinced by boss to let me have the time off, but it means ive got loads to do this week, so not really got much time to plan or prepare, so any recommendations would be much appreciated!

oh and one more thing, for anyone wanting to travel within Germany for cheap, theres a pretty useful website, www.mitfahrgelegenheit.de, where people advertise spaces in their cars for long journeys. We are getting to Berlin and back that way for €50 each, half the price we would pay on the train!

Have a good trip mate... :cheers:

Weekend in Berlin

I havent been to Berlin yet, but the link above is the thread about a TP member that had a great time there. Hope it helps!! (he has some really nice photos!)

Later!

I love Berlin, theres so much to see and do there. I recommend taking the walking tours that they advertise in hostels, wheer they explain the history and important sights. Over two visits to the city Ive been on the big 8 hour one that covers all of Berlin history, as well as one focusing on teh Cold War, one focusing on the Third Reich, and one called the Spy Tour, focusing on the spy game that took place in teh city during the Cold War. All of those have quite a bit of overlap, but I eat all that shit up, so it was worth it to me. All of them were great. If you want more of a general overview of the city, take a bike tour with Fat Tire Bike's (I think that was the name), which I also have done. The bike tour is a good place to meet like minded travellers. I had fun going out at night, but I dont remember the names of any places. Although if you take one of these tours, they will bring you by this old squatters building in the former east which has been partially converted into a bar and club by the squatters community. That was a fun couple of nights.

Thanks! i knew i had read something about berlin on here in the last few weeks but obviously didnt look hard enough! that blog was one of the things that gave me the idea of going to Berlin

those walking tours sound really interesting, will definitely have to look into doing the main one while we are there.

Lucky you, I LOVE Berlin. Berlin is an odd ecclectic city. Some of it is very old classic even with cathedrals. Some of it is still cold war communist with Trabants running around and 1960 style buildings and "modern" 1980s statues. And yes, there are some remnents of its nazi past that are disturbing butimportant none the less The west is more modern and looks nicer but also more expensive. Here are some top things to see:

Check Point Charlie
Unter dem Linde Strasse
The Brandemburg gates
TV tower is fun too
There is the nostalgia of East Berlin where there is an "ostalgie" market where you can buy trinkets from the old GDR.
The Berliner Dom-Its a beautiful cathedral.
The old Reichstag
The old East German Parliament-you can't go in anymore because of the asbestos but you can see it from the outside. Best hurry because they are knocking it down.
Theres the Berlin history museam and you can even go into an old bomb shelter!
Also if you can go to a beer garden, theres this one by the river Spree called Georgenhaus I think that makes their own beer-Georgenbrau that is simply delicious!

Enjoy! :cheers:

It's my favourite city, i love the tenements everywhere, and wierd squats still exist. after seeing the film, goodbye lenin, it's full of interesting places.
and you cant get lost in Berlin cos the tv tower kind of acts as a guide. I stayed in freidrichschain, Southeast of the centre, i think it was called sunflower hostel which is really nice with the coolest staff. Treptow monument is a soviet soldier statue- no-one goes there but it's real cool. Also the church next to the zoo station is a bit of an oddity. potsdamer platz was a bit too corporate and dead i thought.
when i went it was baking hot in 2005 so all the parks were great, where the rivers (havel/ spree) are like beaches. also berlin seemed full of young cool people everywhere, so all the bars close late/early-esp the kreuzberg/ freidrichschain/prenzlauerberg areas.

think i should finally update this

got back last thursday but been way too busy with work and stuff since then

I had an amazing time. i LOVE berlin. the weather was good most of the time, a bit cold at times but at least it didnt rain like most of the rest of germany.

i didnt get to read the last 2 posts til i got back,

I did pretty much everything on your list, except the east german parliament, as they have already started knocking it down. i think they ware planning to replace it with a palace which used to be there. We went to the Mauermuseum (the one right next to checkpoint charlie) but didnt get to see any of the other museums unfortunately. I know the beer garden you mean. we had a meal there that was awful, but the beer definitely made up for it!

We spent pretty much all of our time in east Berlin, the only time we went into the west was to visit the olympic stadium, and once to kurfurstendamm, but i really didnt like it compared to the east, there seems a lot more happening and the people seem more friendly.

I really didnt expect to like it so much, but i love the mix of new and old architecture, berlin is one of the few placed where it seems to work well. and there are so many young people around.

anyway i really should be working! just enough time to attach some pictures! :thumbup:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...e/P5160122.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...e/P5160105.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...e/P5140060.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...e/P5140034.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...e/P5140023.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...e/P5140030.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...e/P5150097.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...e/P5140008.jpg

that should do for now!

Wow those pics look great! Which hostel did you stay at while you were there? Will be my next stop after the Dam so any hostel info would be great! :cheers:

Vielen danke fur der photos! They look awesome. Yeah I forgot to mention the maurmuseum but thats fun too. Georgenbrau is nice, I honestly don't remember much about the food though. Yeah they are replacing the GDR Parliament with a replica of an old palace. I agree with your opinions on East Berlin as well, it is more vibrent and of course-cheaper :)
Glad you had a good time!
Ben

Nice stuff! :photo:

Thanks!

The hostel i stayed in was called the Circle or something - im sorry, my memory is that bad that im not even sure if thats right. they have 2 in berlin though, the one i stayed at was 5 minutes walk from alexander platz, so really convenient, in walking distance of pretty much all the sites in east berlin. and theres a u-bahn station right outside the hostel

As for the hostel itself, its pretty cool. the rooms are nice, clean, nice showers. Nice bar downstairs as well.

The only thing i didnt like about it was that i didnt feel it had much atmosphere. cant really explain it really as it had everything you could want in a hostel, there was just something missing. even so, i would still recommend it, and definitely use it again when im next in berlin

Alexanderplatz is so cool I stayed in Alexanderplatz when I went to Berlin.