TRAVEL: Berlin, Germany - serenity, street art, and surprises

Berlin is a very cool city, there’s absolutely no doubt about it. I remembered this from having visited the city a few years ago, but it became clear to me again as soon as I left the airport to catch the train, as we sailed through hip neighbourhoods with buildings covered in graffiti.

This helped take my mind off of the fact that I was not entirely sure that I was on the right train, having jumped on the one waiting on the platform as I legged it to the train station, and was likely to miss the tour I had booked for that day if I encountered any problems, not having left myself sufficient time to make it from the airport to our meeting point at Brandenburg Gate.

Miraculously, I made it to Brandenburg with seconds to spare before the tour officially started and met my newberlin tour guide and about ten other members of the group. We headed back to the train station to buy ABC day tickets (if only I’d known they would have covered my train from the airport too, I could have saved myself buying multiple tickets!) and began our journey first to Wannsee, and then by bus to Potsdam.

I’d chosen Potsdam as I was in Berlin to meet a friend who had to work that day, and knowing that we would spend our weekend ‘doing Berlin’, felt it would be a better use of my time to explore a different city, with Potsdam being relatively nearby and recommended in my guide book.

We began at Glienicke Bridge, aka the Bridge of Spies which was used during the Cold War for the exchange of captured spies between West Berlin and East Germany, and has since been immortalised in the Tom Hanks Movie.  A pretty cool way to start my introduction to Berlin’s vast and often tumultuous history.

We crossed the bridge, passing by some fantastic houses which at the fall of the Berlin Wall had not been in the most desirable location, but certainly are now with their riverfront views and vast acreage. This led us into Neuen Garten where we were told about its creation during the Prussian era and its current status as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The garden is expansive, and home to plenty of palaces including the Marble Palace and Cecilienhof Palace, designed to resemble an English Tudor manor house and most famous for its role as the location of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, in which leaders from the Soviet Union, the UK and the USA made important decisions regarding post WWII Europe. It certainly looked like the type of place which held a lot of history.

We then took the bus into the centre of Potsdam, a beautiful town with lovely architecture and where we took our lunch, with myself opting for currywurst (when in Germany, do as the Germans do…) at Der Hot Dog Laden. Not bad for 3 Euros!

We strolled past the original Brandenburg Gate (yes, the inspiration for Berlin’s famous landmark and into the edges of Park Sansoucci to Friedenskirche where we learnt more about Prussian King Frederick the Great and his motivations behind constructing Park Sansoucci, and Sansoucci Palace. The palace required little more introduction than ‘oh wow’ as we turned the corner to see a pastel yellow palace perched atop tiers upon tiers of flora. It truly was stunning.

It was here that our tour ended, with the suggestion made that if we wanted to, we could walk a further twenty minutes through Sansoucci to Neues Palais, which I certainly did want to do. All in all, I did enjoy the tour as otherwise would have had no idea where to go in Potsdam and our guide was very informative. My only criticism was that it was advertised as a six hour tour online, when in fact two of these hours were travelling to and from Potsdam, and one was having lunch independently.

Now on my own, I strolled blissfully through Park Sansoucci in a state of contentment that I wasn’t sure I’d experienced before. I was astonished that such a wonderful park and all of the incredible architecture within it (even on my straight walk down to the Neues Palais, I passed two more palaces and their associated gardens) were free to the public, and even more so that they were so quiet and peaceful.

Neues Palace loomed before me, and I felt sorry for my tour companions who had opted just to head straight back to Berlin. If I’d thought Sansoucci Palace was impressive, I had another think coming as this monster of a building put even that to shame. What a place, and one that I would thoroughly encourage you to visit, even if not to go inside any of the Palaces – I was more than happy to admire them from outside.

A bus and a train, all included on my day card which was valid until 3am the next morning, brought me back to central Berlin and Alexanderplatz, with a short walk leading me to my accommodation for the next three nights, the Leonardo Royal Berlin Hotel. Picking up my companion there, we Tripadvised where to go for dinner, settling on A Mano, a nearby Italian. I had a delicious truffle gnocchi which arrived less than five minutes after we’d ordered it, and went home full and happy.

The next morning, I had convinced my friend to try out one of my favourite pasttimes of any trip, a free walking tour of the city, of which there are many to choose from. I’m a firm believer that if you want to get a feel for a city and make sure you’re seeing the main things you should, this is the way to do it. We chose one organised by Original Berlin tours and headed off on a three hour tour, which brought us past Museum Island, Humboldt University, Gendarmenmarkt with its nearly identical French and German Cathedrals, Checkpoint Charlie, parts of the wall, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, with its imposing stone blocks filling the square.

After the tour was finished, we stopped for lunch at Steel Vintage Bikes – a bike store/café, and continued on our own little tour past the Reichstag, the oyster like House of World Culture, and to the Victory Column in the centre of Tiergarten, without a doubt the furthest in Berlin that you must go if you want to say you’ve seen the city.

The walking didn’t stop there, and we continued through Tiergarten past the zoo, which I love the fact that you can see through the railings to some of the animal enclosures as you walk through the park, and to Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtnis-Kirche (what a mouthful!) This is well worth the walk  to see the ruins of the old church and its jagged spire, and also the new church which is utterly beautiful, covered floor to ceiling with blue stained glass and a large golden statue of Christ in the centre.

Having passed the day pretty well, it was then time for dinner near the Reichstag as we’d managed to book ourselves a tour of the Reichstag at 8:30 that evening. Another amazing thing that you can do free in Berlin! The elevator takes you up to the impressive glass dome atop the building where an audio guide tells you about the building and what you can see from the height (or not, in our case as it was pretty dark outside). A very cool activity to do.

The following morning, feeling like we had achieved our goal of ‘doing Berlin’, we dedicated our final day in the city to a self guided graffiti tour. Our first stop was Dircksenstrasse, a street between Alexanderplatz and Hackescher Markt full of paste-up graffiti, with dancers covered in glitter, political statements and satirical images lining the walls. Next was Haus Schwarzenberg, a reasonably difficult to find alley but worth the excursion, with exquisite paintings and portraits that you might even expect to see in a gallery.

Since we were relatively central, we decided to pop into the Marienkirche and Nikolaikirche before paying entry into the Berliner Dom, definitely worth it half due to the beautiful interior and the informative display screens regaling the history of the church, and half for the Dome Viewing Platform which gave you great views all across the city. We’d initially intended to either go up the TV Tower or to the Park Inn Panorama, but after this we felt we’d got a great birds eye view, and in a fascinating building to top it all off.

Our tour continued with the huge murals around the Kreuzberg area, including the Astronaut, abstract images and even one which could be 3D (bring your red/blue glasses to find out!) before heading to the East Side Gallery, probably the most famous remaining section of the Berlin Wall. After the fall of the wall, artists were invited to brighten up the then dull sections of the wall which they certainly did, and provided us with a very enjoyable wander.

Legs completely dead, we headed back to Alexanderplatz for a pleasant drink in the square at Kaffee Einstein before the biggest pizza my eyes have ever seen at L’Osteria Berlin Mitte. This place really impressed me with their delicious food in huge quantities and cheaper than you’d find at the likes of Pizza Express. Alas, it was then time for the trip to end, with a 4am wake up call the following morning (thank you, Berlin, for your reliable trains!) looming. All in all, a wonderful trip to a fascinating city. I don’t know if I’ll be back, but I’ll always have fond memories of the German capital.  

Tips for visiting Berlin: GO. TO. POTSDAM. In my opinion, this was even nicer than Berlin itself, and is a great way to pass the time if you’re there for longer than a few days, as really Berlin can be done in a day or so. I also really enjoyed having different days for different elements of the city – one day was more for history, another for culture. It would be very easy to just go to Berlin to see the relics of the war, but the graffiti is certainly worth seeing. Finally, don’t go expecting wholly ‘German food’. Yes, I did have currywurst on Day 1, but Berlin’s cosmopolitan nature means they have a great international food scene which we were more than pleased to try. Happy traveling!

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s blog! I love city trips and can’t think of a better way to spend the weekend. I’d love to know where you think I should visit next, so drop me a message in the comments below or on Twitter @CiarasCountry. What else would you have done in Berlin? Let me know!