Our wish list still included many places, like Cologne and Munich, but being already in the far north we decided to head to my favorite German city – Berlin.
I have been several times in Berlin over the many years and always enjoyed coming back, explore new areas and witness the dramatic changes.
We were lucky again and a friend invited us to stay with him. Just heading out of his apartment next to Karl-Marx-Allee you could immerge quickly into Berlin history. The extremely wide, 2km long avenue is lined with monumental socialist-style buildings, representing East-Berlin’s flagship project after World War II.
What was once East Berlin’s most famous shopping area consists now mostly of apartment blocks, but several of the iconic cultural buildings are still in original use (or at least kept in original design), like Cafe Moskau (biggest East Germany cafe) or Kino International (most famous cinema)
If you are early then have a stop at Cafe Sybille for a good German breakfast and a small exhibition on the street’s history.
The Karl-Marx-Allee ends in the Alexander Platz, another famous location with Berlin’s iconic TV tower, where you find yourself already in the heart of the city and from where you can explore most of the city highlights on foot.
While showing the must-sees to Yang Ke I never got bored myself as there were always new things to discover.
Like the red-colored town hall, which is not only a very pretty sight from outside but now also invites to explore its ground level with several restored halls and small exhibitions.
Same at Gendarmenmarkt, where I never realized that the cathedral (Deutscher Dom) actually hosts an interesting museum on the history of German democracy.
One of the biggest transformations in central Berlin is the replacement of the rather ugly Palace of the Republic (former East German “parliament”) with it’s predecessor, the Berlin City Palace. Driven by a huge lobby group, this project to reconstruct the palace in its former glory took off in 2013 and is now already far advanced. A nearby temporary building nicely shows all the work involved and gives a first view on the future exhibitions hosted in the palace, mostly centered around ethnological collections.
Berlin is The place to be in Germany for artists which you can witness at every corner with uncountable funky cafes and shops.
You will also come across lots of unusual places, conserved for cultural use or other purposes:
If you are in the Prenzlauer Berg district have a look at the Kulturbrauerei, a former brewery turned into cultural center. We spent nearly a whole afternoon in a small museum on the daily life in former East Germany.
To visit the most famous icon of former German separation, head to the East Side Gallery, where a 1.3km part of the wall has been conserved and painted by many many artists. Unfortunately many paintings are suffering from graffiti and corrosion and the remaining in good conditions are currently “protected” by metal grids.
If you have a bit more time, make a one-day trip to nearby Potsdam. Former residency of the German (Prussian) kings it boosts several huge castles of incredible wealth, the most famous being Castle Sanssouci (“without sorrow”). We had a tour through another castle, which “only” served as residency for guests, but nevertheless had amazing rooms, one more crazy than the other. Just a shame that our last king Wilhelm II was allowed to take a train with 40 wagons full of treasures with him to his exile in the Netherlands after loosing World War I.
My favorite was the Grotto Hall, a room completely covered by marble and all kind of precious stones.
A completely different sight is the Dutch quarter, a small district completely built in typical Dutch red brick stones.
