Berlin 4 Night Itinerary Help?

I would drop that hop on hop off bus tour and go on a walking tour from one of the high quality companies in Berlin. You will get so much more out of your visit there than listening to a recording while you whiz past a building, plus you will save money. Most of them only cost 12 €. If you love history, do your self a favor and go on several tours. Berlin overview, 3rd Reich, and Cold War.
If you aren't sure, read reviews from the tour companies in Berlin to see where those bus tours rank.

Plan a visit to either Sachsenhausen or Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Perhaps add Track 17 to your itinerary.

I have had good luck on 5 tours with Insider Tours. The guides are an unbelievable treasure trove of knowledge. All of the tours were fascinating and I hope to go on more the next time I head up to Berlin.
http://www.insidertour.com/

@Ms.Jo those tours look amazing! I have already penciled in the 3rd Reich tour on day 2 and the famous Berlin tour on day 3. Thanks for the awesome suggestion.

Your list is too limited.
It should include a walk along the Karl-Marx-Allee - from Alexander Platz to Warschauer Strasse - to see the propagandist housing projects of the former DDR (GDR). The Treptower Park, not too far away, is another showpiece, in this case of the victorious Russians.
Reserve some time for Unter der Linden and the area around as the Prussian core of present-day Berlin. It is at its best and most elegant on the Gendarmenmarkt.
Checkpoint Charlie is worth about five minutes of your time. It has become a vulgar tourist trap.

Definitely add Treptower Park, and perhaps the Olympic Stadium if you are a history fan. Also, if you are going anytime besides late April through October, drop most of the outdoor activity.

The German History Museum will eat up most of your day, so allot it much more time. You will get sucked into it, believe me.

Instead of the overpriced, cluttered Checkpoint Charlie Museum, try the fun little DDR Museum, right on the Spree, off Unter Den Linden.

The rebuilt Bundestag is a fascinating building and the views over the city from the glass dome are alone worth a visit. For security reasons, tourists must apply in advance for an "invitation" to join a tour. http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/visits

I agree that Checkpoint Charlie is worth no more than five minutes. You can sometimes see some of the same fake border guards at the Brandenburg Gate.

The German History Museum, on the other hand, is well worth more time than you have set aside; I spent several hours following its narratives. https://www.dhm.de/en/about-us.html

I agree with above replies, that there's no need to go to Checkpoint Charlie, and that the Germany History Museum and the DDR Museum are much more worthwhile. If you do want to know more about this period, be sure to go to the exhibits near the Nordbahnhof Station (details in Rick's book). It has the only intact section of the Wall with the double wall construction, as well as very informative free movies. The station itself has a great exhibit about the "ghost stations."

It is also true that the German History Museum is worth as much time as you can spare. I could easily have spent all day there.

I also agree that a walking tour is much better than a bus tour (although my mother insisted on taking a bus tour and it was OK, I got much more out of my walk on a prior trip). We also took a boat tour, which is light on information - if you want something scenic and relaxing it's fine, but if you want more, again, the guided walk is the best bet.

While I wasn't as bowled over by the zoo as most others are, I loved the aquarium next door.

Hi,

If you want to focus on war history, there is a lot to see in Berlin It all depends on how much time you want to devote to tracking down these sites, which means dropping some of the list above. . Forget Checkpoint Charlie, as suggested above. I agree with seeing Treptower Park to see the Soviet memorial and military cemetery. For the war sites I suggest the Resistance Museum, (Gedenkstätte deutscher Widerstand. ). It's located on Stauffenbergstraße, within walking distance from the HI hostel on Kluckstraße.

Another place on war history is the museum at Berlin-Karlshorst, the actual site where the Germans signed the capitulation with the Soviets the day after they had done likewise with the Allies in Reims. (They signed four surrenders in total in 1945). That museum shows the war in the East. Take S-Bahn 3, get off at Karlshorst, good signage along the way. The ack ack gun towers (Flaktürme ) still exist near Berlin Gesundbrunnen. Information on this can be gotten at the Tourist Offices...one is at Berlin Hbf on the ground floor, another is on the east side of the Brandenburg Gate at Pariser Platz.

If you want to see a battlefield memorial and museum, do a day trip outside of Berlin to Seelow (Gedenkstätte und Museum Seelower Höhen). That is worth your time and energy to see every single exhibit inside and outside, all the more if you read German, likewise with Karlshorst. Take the train from Berlin Hbf to Frankfurt an der Oder then transfer to Seelow. There are also Prussian-German military cemeteries, which are accessible by public transportation, depends on the level of your interest. I tracked down three of them, one was the British WW 1 cemetery.

One last comment: Unlike Paris, London, Budapest, Vienna, Brussels, Warsaw, Prague, Helsinki there is no military/war museum per se in Berlin. Those are spread out all over Germany.

To avoid confusion, there is Checkpoint Charlie itself kind of kitschy photo op for tourists. Close by, along the line where the Berlin Wall was, there's a series of billboards with photos and explanations (in English too) that is very interesting. There is also a highly overpriced and disorganized collection of miscellany that is called the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Visit the area, don't waste your money on the museum. The DDR Museum is on the river, just across from Museum Island, and a very interesting hands-on experience.

I was disappointed by the HOHO bus - the explanations were too short to be interesting.

I am just back from 8 days/7 nights in Berlin. We did a Sandeman's New Berlin "free" walk in English - you tip the same as a regular tour. This was excellent and we would use them again. They also run a tour to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp which takes 6 hours, but may suit you history interest. Also a Third Reich Tour.

I agree with the other posters, avoid Checkpoint Charlie - it's ghastly.

Also of interest was the tour of the old Templehof airport which was used for the air drop. Then walk 10 minutes north onto one of my favourite streets, Bergmannstrasse and grab a coffee or a meal. So many places to choose from - the stalls in Marheineke Markthalle are fantastic.

The boat tour will probably be more fun than the hoho bus with a more interesting perspective. And you can have refreshments on the ride.

Back in the 1970's the Checkpoint Charlie Museum was fascinating. Today it's looks worn and is not worth the money.

I found the Jüdisches Museum fascinating, sad and worthwhile. Also, while the Pergamon Museum is undergoing construction you can still see the Market Gate of Miletus, the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way from Babylon which are amazing. The Deutsches Historisches Museum is excellent as other have said. If you want to change things up a bit. I enjoyed the art at the Gemäldegalerie.

Pam

Thanks everyone! Looks like we will be making Checkpoint Charlie the focus of our trip, lots of glowing reviews.... /sarcasm. Will be avoiding that for sure.

Will cut the Hoho bus, and maybe do a Spree River Boat tour after our train in to Berlin. Followed by a couple of walking tours over the next 2 days, with a stop to the Germany History Museum sprinkled in there.

I've heard good thing about the Zoological Garden, and I am a sucker for animals so I still think we will end up popping in for a looksie.

For walking tours, you might also have a look at Original Berlin Walks. I found their guides to be exceptional, and the tours very interesting.

Regarding Checkpoint Charlie, it's probably worth a look. There's a McDonalds right across from it, so grab a coffee and spend 10 minutes watching the spectacle of tourists posing for pictures. You could also try a ride in one of those dreadful mechanical contraptions, the Trabi.

I disagree with above criticism regarding Checkpoint Charlie Museum. I found it engaging and fascinating. The stories and items telling stories of escapes from DDR are very interesting.
But I agree that DDR Museum and German History Museum are essential while visiting Berlin.
I also recommend Tränenpalast exhibition and seeing Reichstag inside.

I second and third the walking tours given by Original Berlin Walks- excellent guides, very informative and reasonably priced at 8-12 Euros. If you have a Berlin Welcome card you get a small discount on the tours as well. No need to book ahead just show up at their meeting place before tour time.

We did visit Checkpoint Charlie Museum- we had the spare time- and I too found some of the exhibits/stories interesting. We probably spent too much time in there but we did feel it was worthwhile, altho not well organized. The touristy mess out on the street in front was ghastly- I do agree with that!
Allow plenty of time for both Topography of Terror- (we went back for a second visit- there was just so much there!) and the German History Museum.

If you visit Sachsenhausen or Ravensbruck- leave it for last day- it was hard to do anything else later that day. Or maybe the Spree Boat Tour would work that evening. We did Sachsehhausen with Original Berlin Walks.

I definitely second the recommendation of a tour of the Reichstag. I have done it twice; on both occasions, we initially stopped in the hallway filled with writing by the Russian soldiers who occupied the building during the fall of Berlin in 1945. To their credit, the Germans preserved much of the writing, only removing some of the obscene comments. Our guide translated a number of the comments, which typically consisted of the date the soldier wrote his comment, the soldier's hometown, and a message for the Germans (e.g., 'payback for Stalingrad', etc.). On one of the tours, the guide took us by Angela Merkel's office, which was on an upper floor. Interestingly, the walls on both sides of the door to her office also had preserved Russian writing. Perhaps as a daily reminder to acknowledge Germany's dark past and to be thankful that the Russian occupiers have left?

On reminders or remaining evidence of the Russian presence in Berlin: When one goes to the Ger. History Museum and looks immediately to the left, one sees the gigantic statue of Lenin. Prior to reunification or Die Wende, that huge statue was in Berlin-Karlshorst in what is now the German-Russian Relations Museum, a lot more balanced in focus than its predecessor under the commie regime which showed only the Soviet version of WW 2, ie, don't expect to see anything on the Allied campaign in Italy, D-Day and Normandy, North Africa or what the British call the Western Desert, the battle of Britain, etc.

I had a chance to see that museum once, in Aug 1989, getting way out there in East Berlin, all in Russian obviously, hardly any German explanations, prior to the Russian departure. When the Russians pulled out of Berlin, that museum went too, which is a given. Interesting too was that on Museum's grounds were numerous Soviet tanks and artillery pieces from the war, T-34s, JS I, etc. Most of those tanks in that "tank garden" are gone now but not all.

When you're at Zoological Garden, be sure to check out the new Bikini Berlin Mall. It is next to and to the side of the Berlin Zoo. It is ultra modern and there are huge picture windows from which you can view some of the animals while enjoying a drink. Also, check the schedule for boat tours, because they do not run all year long. We were there in November last year and were not able to book one.
Also be sure that the Spree River tour you take is in English if you do not speak German. I grew up as a military brat in Berlin, so we still visit and stay with friends who live there. One of them booked a beautiful Spree river tour for my husband and I a few years ago and did not think to check that there was no English version available on that particular tour.

Checkpoint Charlie is on the way to Topography of Terror, you could see it then. Leave lots of time for Topography, extensive material inside and outside.