Here’s a round up of what we got up to on our last two days in Berlin.
Bastard Restaurant
Website: http://www.bastard-berlin.de/
The most incredible breakfast we discovered while in Berlin, Bastard is a café-come-restaurant in the Kreuzberg area. We ventured here on a Saturday morning around 10am and the place was full. The food was so reasonably priced and the dishes were pretty incredible. I’d recommend the eggs, pancakes and the meat platter.
TIP: If you’re heading there on the weekend I would book a table in advance – the only table they had available for six of us was outside in the crisp, mid-October weather.
Topography of Terror
Website: www.topographie.de/en/
We briefly visited the Topography of Terror in the morning after breakfast. The exhibitions are really extensive, so if you’re interested in visiting I would set aside half a day so you have plenty of time to take everything in. The museum itself sits on the previous site of the Gestapo and the SS headquarters, adding to the saddening history that is documented inside. A touching visit.
Holocaust Memorial
Website: http://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/
Full name being Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This is probably something you’ve heard of because of it’s unique architectural nature. I think there are 2,711 concrete blocks there; it’s very big and very disorientating. Just be prepared for it to be a little busy and noisy though – there were a lot of children running around playing, and some random photo shoots going on in amongst the blocks.
Brandenburg Gate
Not something I found totally exciting but a must-see nonetheless.
Deutscher Bundestag
Website: http://www.bundestag.de/
The dome atop the Reichstag building might have been my favourite part of the trip. You have to book this in advance via the Bundestag website; there are time slots, but once you get up there you can stay as long as you like. I did the audio tour on the way up and it was great. You can pick these up from the desk when you get out of the elevator on the roof. For a popular tourist attraction it wasn’t overly busy, and the views over the city are just spectacular. Book the Bundestag at the link above.
TIP: We checked the approximate time of sunset and booked our visit about 45 minutes before this. That way you get a full view of a city, and get to see a beautiful sunset all in one trip.
Treptower Park Memorial
Website: http://www.berlin.de/orte/sehenswuerdigkeiten/treptower-park/
The Soviet War Memorial at Treptower Park is absolutely breathtaking. We had beautiful weather on our last day and the park was just perfect. I would take a couple of hours out of your day to visit here; the park itself is huge and I can imagine is perfect for a summer time picnic.
Café Wintergarten
Website: http://www.literaturhaus-berlin.de/wintergarten-cafe-restaurant.html
We headed to Kurfürstendamm on our last day. Mainly to visit the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, but also to indulge in our last proper meal in the city. Kurfürstendamm is one of the main shopping streets in Berlin (where everything on a Sunday is ironically closed), and much more clean-cut than the area we were staying. The food was wonderful and very reasonably priced – I’ll let the photographs fill you in on the rest.
I hope you found some interesting things to check out if you’re planning a trip to Berlin. Let me know if you have any Berlin recommendations in – I’d love to hear from you.
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