Things to do in Berlin

Berlin keeps the twentieth century on the street rather than in a vitrine. Capital of an empire, then of Weimar, then of the Reich, then of nothing, then of two countries. What survives is uneven on purpose.

The line in the pavement

A double row of cobbles marks where the Wall stood, some 5.7 kilometres of it through the centre. Metal plaques read 1961 to 1989. The line breaks where buildings went up over it.

• Bernauer Strasse. A preserved stretch of death strip, watchtower included, and free. Start here.
• The East Side Gallery. Some 1.3 kilometres of the inner wall, painted in 1990.
• Checkpoint Charlie. A replica hut and men in costume. Two minutes, then walk on.
• Topography of Terror. The Gestapo headquarters site, indoors and out, free.

Museum Island, and what is shut

Five buildings on one island in the Spree, UNESCO-listed since 1999. A day ticket covers the lot for twenty-four euros. Not all of it is open.

• The Pergamonmuseum is closed. It shut in 2023 and is due back on 4 June 2027. The panorama building next door stays open.
• Free Sundays. Some seventy Berlin museums charge nothing on the first Sunday of the month, on tickets booked online. The good ones go early.
• The Reichstag dome. Free, but you register beforehand with names and birth dates, and original photo ID is checked at the door. Without a booking, the service centre on Platz der Republik can fit you in two hours ahead.

How the night actually works

The western half abolished the legal closing hour in 1949, and it never came back. That is the whole explanation. Bars shut when they empty.

• Midnight is early. Rooms fill at two or three, and the queue before that is mostly visitors. The big Saturday session runs to Monday morning, at a few clubs rather than all.
• The door is a person. Selection is real, unexplained and final, and being turned away means nothing. No dress code exists, which is not the same as anything working.
• Phones. Stickers go over your cameras on the way in at the serious places. Photographs get you removed.
• Getting home. A day ticket runs to three the next morning; the U-Bahn runs all night at weekends.

Guides, games and the days out

• The guide is the product. Private walks by the two hours or the day — Cold War, Third Reich, general — for groups up to ten, which prices better than per head.
• The cheap end. Self-guided phone routes through Kreuzberg, East Berlin and 1989, at coffee prices.
• Sachsenhausen. Forty minutes north, free and hard. The grounds open daily; the indoor museums close Mondays.
• Potsdam. Sanssouci and the Prussian park, half an hour southwest.

Practical

• Zones. AB covers the city at four euros a ride. BER airport and Potsdam need ABC.
• Winter. Grey, and dark by four in December. May to September is for walking.
• Döner. About seven euros now, and every Berliner will tell you what it was.
• Späti. The corner shop that sells cold beer late and on Sundays. Drinking it in the street is legal.
• Cash. Plenty of bars and Imbisse still take nothing else.