If you have been to Berlin and can share specific neighborhoods, sites, and experiences, we would love that. We want to walk and take in the city and see what makes it so special.
Thank you!
Posted by
St. Louis metro area
203 posts
For starters, see what our host here recommends: [https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/germany/berlin-itinerary][1]
Next I'm going to find my 2023 trip report and will put that in another post. I've been there twice, but was sick most of the time on the previous trip, so I won't count that.
Posted by
St. Louis metro area
203 posts
Here's the report on my 2023 trip: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/what-happened-to-a-75-year-old-woman-on-a-long-hostelling-trip find anything of interest, but there are other details there too.
Posted by
Schwerin
4616 posts
We want to walk and take in the city and see what makes it so special.
Just as heads up: Berlin covers an area of 892 sqkm, this is more than the land area of NYC.
Therefore I recommend to choose the walks wisely and to use public transport, HoHo buses, as well as river, bike and rickshaw tours for the rest.
If you have a Saturday included try a week market or on Sundays a flea market.
A nice neighborhood o walk through is Bergmannkiez. Try a piece of cake at Frau Behrens Torten.
Posted by
89 posts
Highly recommend an underground tour of Berlin. We went on the Dark Worlds tour. It was amazing. We went this past December with our two teen boys. It was our favorite tour that we took in Germany.
https://www.berliner-unterwelten.de/en/guided-tours/public-tours/dark-worlds.html
Posted by
Salem, Oregon, USA
3866 posts
As Mark noted, it's really spread out. So make use of the good transit system. I recommend booking tickets for the guided behind the scenes tour at the Reichtstag building. It requires preplanning to reserve tickets and may not be available due to parliament being in session. You also have to go through airport style security. Worth it though, a very interesting experience and the tour ends at the dome. https://www.bundestag.de/en/visittheBundestag/dome/registration-245686
Posted by
1016 posts
gift link - 36 Hours Berlin
Posted by
UK Hoddesdon
11 posts
I think you should walk through Kreuzberg. It's the real Berlin. And don't forget to visit East Side Gallery for the wall murals.
Posted by
1358 posts
We enjoyed Prenzlauer Berg, and specifically Hotel Oderberger as a place to stay. There’s a big old brewery nearby that serves as a multi-faceted community center with an excellent museum of the DDR. Museum of the wall is easy to reach from here, and makes for a nice itinerary.
Posted by
Duluth, MN🌲
11637 posts
When I was in Germany in 2022, I stayed in the Hackescher Markt area, which is very convenient to the U-Bahn, S-Bahn, and trams, and is an easy walk to the major museums. The DDR museum is only a few blocks away, along with the TV Tower, and Museum Island is a quick 5 minute walk. You can easily walk to Lindenstraß from there, There are several grocery stores a few blocks away along with a couple of wine shops, many cafes and good restaurants.
It's also not that far from Prenzlauer Berg, which it's a really enjoyable area to walk through (it was mentioned above as well.)
But as others have pointed out, Berlin is huge and there is no real specific city center like there are in many other cities. You will have to go all over to see a lot of the places, and that's fine. They have great public transport, and it's very easy to hop on a tram, S-Bahn or U-Bahn to get to places.
You also might want to consider taking a day trip out to Potsdam, but with only three days, I would suggest just focusing your attention on the city itself. I was there for seven nights, and I still didn't see everything or get even close to it.