berlin visit

[cherryelm]

my husband and i are visiting berlin april 30th for 3 nights ineed advice on where to visit what to see and reccommendations on eating and drinking. thank you

[kovac]

Berlin is a great city - and there is loads to do. I will only recommend a few of my favourite places, but I would suggest you get a travel guide with a good map - as its pretty vast.

There are actually good walking tours of the city. You can find out more at any tourist info point - they usually meet up outside of the train station I think, and depart at around 10am.

In the Eastern part of the city you have:

Brandenburg Gate - previously the western entrance to the City

Unter Den Linden - the wide boulevard which runs down from the Brandenburg Gate. Nice to walk down - some nice cafes etc.

The hub of Eastern Berlin is Alexanderplatz. Not the prettiest of places, but worth visiting to see the World Clock (Weltzeituhr)

Another must is the Eastside Gallery. Its a stetch of preserved wall running between the Ostbahnhof (Eastern Station) and Warschauer Strasse.

New Synagogue/Neue Synagoge - there is a Jewish centre there with a permanent exhibition. This is located on Oranienburger Strasse.

In the western part of the city there are the modern areas of Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz.

The Reichstag (parliament) is north of the brandenburg gate. There is a glass dome above the hall and it is great to visit. Queues are quite long, but the spiral stair case up to the top is worth experiencing!

Checkpoint Charlie / Cafe Adler - Cafe Adler was a former pharmacy on Friedrichstrasse and was the last building in west berlin before the checkpoint border crossing. Its nice to have a coffe there.

Eating and drinking in Berlin is not too expensive.

[cherryelm]

thanks for that kovac i'll be following your advice. i am getting sooo excited

[trendypaul]

I agree that Berlin is fantastic, easily my favourite european city. Very cool. It's a great place to walk around and "discover" places for yourself. I would suggest getting the time out guide as we found it very useful. Just to add to previous post; the reichstag is a must (you'll get some fab pictures) go early morning and you'll beat most other people, there is a fantastic mexican restaurant (I know this sounds a bit weird but it's run by a mexican lady who moved to berlin and was the best mexican meal I've ever had) in the old east/ mitte area (sorry can't remember what it's called but I think it's in the time out guide), the oylmpic stadium is also fantastic (neither me or my fiancee are into football but it's a magnificent architectural sight. I would also say remember to validate your train/subway tickets - there are yellow boxes on platforms that you need to put your ticket in before you travel (quite often they are in a different place to where you buy your tickets). I say this because we flew in, bought a ticket from the easy to use machine at the airport but were then stumped as we knew we needed to validate our ticket but there was no sign where we needed to do it at the machine (after some embarrassing dithering we eventually asked at information and were told it was at the train station platform round the corner. Have fun!!