Things to in Berlin when you're there

reichstag dome?

hmm yeah, naturally. she has something of a headstart on me what with having lived there for a year and a bit of her life, but there must be awesome social stuff she might not necessarily have encountered?

altho tbh we're gonna spend most of the time going to markets and eating cake

babelplatz
hansaveirtel - best architecture
turkish market
canal + beer if it's not too cold
potsdam
bauhaus museum

all cheap or free minus train fare

treptow market
boxhagener platz market
fuck in tiergarten bushes next to the gays

caffee burger sometimes has english-speaking poetry readings and shit like that
S-bahn circle line for 2 euros to get a sense of the city

dankeg du! wow, gotta try and fit all that in now! yr 9th suggestion is a worthy ambition :)

p.s. gf is buying me my train fares :D

nice
it's such a good walking city. set out to cross prenzlauer berg or kreuzberg in an afternoon and you'll come across a half-dozen cool things-galleries, lookout spots, quiet bars-that aren't in books

treptow market

this place is totally weird and a fire trap btw. have you ever wanted an east german phone booth? treptow's your market

dr. pong!

definitely not doing things from a book. if i have to go out alone without guide or language (beyond "can i have one of x please" i think that sort of walk would be ideal

and a Stasi phonebooth? ooh, tempting!

this is totally worth walking by or free on thursdays: mies van der rohe, berlin neue nationalgalerie
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/161/393480841_6b404cb91d.jpg

Can't be arsed to type them again, but I gave a few tips on what do in Berlin in this thread:

weekdays in Berlin

The former Stasi prison turned into a museum I mentioned there is totally worth the visit if you're interested in East German history. And so is the gay museum.

On Sunday you could visit the fleamarket on Boxhagener Platz in Friedrichshain, it's quite nice. (I'm not 100% sure if they still have it this late in the autumn though.) Friedrichshain is a nice place to hang out in general, with lots of small pubs and cafes and bohemian kind of people.

"Berghain", one of the coolest techno clubs in Berlin is also near Friedrichshain, but it's quite expensive I think. When we went there the entrance fee was 10 Euros.

Also, there's tons of squats and activist cafes in Berlin which often have stuff like cinema, gigs, theatre, etc for cheap. You can find more info about that scene in Stress Faktor.

Berghain/Panorama Bar was kind of the whole point of Berlin for me.

Wikipedia tells me Tempelhof airport closes on Friday - I'd go there

Ooh, grab a bit of tarmac for myself! Or even as a gift to my beloved!!

Cheers ppl, keep 'em coming (if you feel like it)...

go to some art gallery and be a fruit cake. 'omg i'm in berlin and doing something artsy'

Just goosestep about the place.

the unbidden image of LJ in berghain has made for a o_0 start to my week. slightly horrifying

I'm jealous - I was there for a couple of days during the World Cup and thought it was a superb place to hang about in, but I've never managed to get back. It was all good, as far as I could tell, and cheap to boot. going to markets and eating cake is a pretty decent plan I think. You'll doubtless end up passing through Hauptbanhof station hundreds of times, but make sure you check it out anyway, it's really cool

really fucking sub-zero freezing if the weather forecast is telling the truth more like

then head east for much bleakness

Ha! Well I might do, unless getting the camera out actually means frostbite. Expenses are a bonus with Berlin from what I understand; it only cost fifty quid return for me, and I'm staying in teh woman's (fairly nice) student digs so I should be able to make some small outlay on clubs/shops/bratwurst, just wish I'd converted more pounds to euros about uh a week ago ;_;

if the cold doesn't bother you much i would suggest the "brewers best" walking tour. it's abut 8-9 hours, iirc, covering alot of the historical spots in the city & given by a cranky retired UK spy!

ooooh!

I KNOW HIM! t3rry br3wer saved my life when i was 15. can't believe a. he's now a tour guide and b. i'm going to berling in two weeks, so can go on his tour and freak him out/thank him in person.

STORY!

and yes. he's awesome.

I was on a school exchange to Hamburg in 1990 and we had a day trip to Berlin. The wall was down but things were still pretty militarised... and to cut a very long story very short I somehow (idiotically) lost the whole school party in the Zoo Station car park and was close to sleeping under a newspaper in the (increasingly terrifying as night fell) station... until T3rry came up and said hello, heard my tale of woe, took me back to his house on the train, called the British Consulate and ended up putting me, my German teacher and the exchange school's English teacher up in his house for the night before packing us off on the train back to Hamburg in the morning. I could at this point add some wild through-the-prism-of-an-adult-mind speculation about the reason he approached me in the station in the first place, but I could never prove it and would be blatantly opening myself up to a potential libel suit...

and sorry, i was 14 not 15.

now i've written that down and re-read it, i'm thinking maybe it'd be too odd to just turn up, nearly 20 years later, and remind him out of the blue...

really? i think it'd be pretty rad!

"Hi t3rry, remember in 1990 when you *insert libel here* a young boy in the Zoo Station but he *insert libel here*? Well, that boy was me!"

"hey terry - remember rescuing me from zoo station?!" this would be followed by some sort of warm yet awkward embrace, i'd image.

or followed up by "i'm legal now!"

i'm looking forward, at least, to telling my gf the whole story while standing in the actual car park in question...

can anyone help me out with a tip for an oyster-like way to get around berlin for a four-day stretch? off there with the missus tomorrow but won't be able to walk for more than 10 minutes at a stretch so need some advice.

All transport is berlin is free until you meet a ticket inspector with a large Alsatian.

Just get the tourist ticket, it's valid for all public transport and it's not very expensive. You can buy it from a ticket-vending machines on the bigger train and metro stations. I wouldn't suggest free-riding in the public transport, there's plenty of plain-clothes ticket inspectors on the patrol.

IIRC correctly it was a bit over 20 Euros for a week, and I think you can buy it for a shorter period of time too.

The ticket inspectors busted me once...

when i lived in hamburg, i had a friend who decided never to pay for a single train journey for the year we were there. he got busted three times and it still ended up massively cheaper than our student travel card things. (somewhat contrary to the spirit of things, mind, but hey, we were all skint)

so, €20 for a week? well that's dead cheap. i shall investigate at schoenefeld airport when we get there...

http://www.bvg.de/index.php/en/Bvg/Detail/folder/764/rewindaction/Index/id/2903/name/7-Day+Pass

Here's some more info on it. It's a bit more expensive if you buy the full ABC-zone ticket, but basically the AB-zone ticket should be enough for you, because there's hardly any need for a tourist to travel to the C zone.

Please things to in Berlin when I'm there.

Preferably things besides the obvious tourist sites which I can figure out on my own. Would like - good places to eat, bars, shops, art galleries, places to hear bands, oddities, out-of-the-way spots, etc.

Breakfast @ Barcomi's. And make sure you try their cheesecake, too.
Quick & tasty meal @ Mr Vuong.
Best thing you can do: rent a bike. Cycling through the city is terrific and a quick way to go wherever you want.

[q]I really liked Oranienburger Str. for cute cafes and restaurants and lots of art galleries. There was this massive artists' commune place there that was interesting but I can't remember what it was called.

― ENBB, Tuesday, July 17, 2007 1:27 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I found it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunst_Haus_Tacheles

― ENBB, Tuesday, July 17, 2007 1:29 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark[q]

What I said there still holds true. I also second everything that Jergins has recommended on this thread.

If you have the time do yourself a favor and go to Potsdam. It's not too far by train and beautiful. I was so glad that we did.