Berlitz Pocket Guide Berlin (Travel Guide eBook)

• Publisher: Berlitz Travel
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781785730375
• Edition: 13
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

Berlitz Pocket Guide Berlin is a concise, full-colour travel guide that combines lively text with vivid photography to highlight the very best that this bustling, sophisticated city has to offer. The Where To Go chapter details all the key sights in the city, as well as those in the nearby elegant town of Potsdam, from the Reichstag building to the Brandenburg Gate, via the Jewish Museum and the Pergamonmuseum with its wonders of the ancient world. Handy maps on the cover help you to get around with ease. To inspire you, the book offers a rundown of the Top 10 Attractions in Berlin, followed by an itinerary for a Perfect Day in the city. The What to Do chapter is a snapshot of ways to spend your spare time, from classical music, cabaret and clubs to shopping, sports and festivals. You'll also be armed with background information, including a brief history of the city and an Eating Out chapter covering its great variety of cuisine. There are carefully chosen listings of the best hotels and restaurants, and an A-Z to give you all the practical information you will need.

Where To Go

You’ll need to plan carefully for a thorough exploration of Berlin; with a total area of 880 sq km (340 sq miles) it is bigger than most European capitals. Since the reorganisation of the municipal transport system, virtually the whole of the city is accessible via underground (U-Bahn), district railways (S-Bahn), bus or tram. You should have no difficulty in reaching the outlying areas, including Grunewald and Potsdam, by public transport, which runs 24 hours a day. There is absolutely no need for a car in Berlin.

Berlin Cathedral

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A good orientation exercise is to start with an organised sightseeing tour. Many bus tours depart from the eastern end of the Kurfürstendamm in west Berlin or from Alexanderplatz on the eastern side of the city and are hop-on/hop-off. Alternatively, cruises on the Landwehrkanal or Spree and Havel rivers offer a more leisurely way of taking in areas of eastern and western Berlin that are not normally covered by the tour buses.

Taking the S-Bahn

A good initial way of getting the measure of Berlin is to take the S-Bahn around the centre, from Zoologischer Garten to Alexanderplatz. From the elevated track you get impressive views of some major landmarks, including the Reichstag.

This guide takes in the sights of Central Berlin from west to east, starting at the Kurfürstendamm, then on to the Tiergarten Area, and through the Brandenburg Gate to Unter den Linden. In the west, a tourist information centre can be found at Europa-Center on Breitscheidplatz and is open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 8pm; the helpful staff will assist you with maps, leaflets and any questions you may have about your visit.

Around the Kurfürstendamm

West Berlin’s main thoroughfare, literally ‘Prince Elector’s Embankment’, is known to Berliners as the Ku’damm 1 [map]. It extends for 3.5km (about 2 miles) through the western part of the city centre, forming a triangular area enclosed by Lietzenburger Straße, Hardenbergstraße, Leibnizstraße and Tauentzienstraße. Here you will find a vast array of shops, cafés, restaurants, theatres, cinemas and art galleries, as well as no-frills fast-food stands and the inevitable souvenir sellers.

Impressed by the prolongation of the Champs-Elysées in Paris to the Bois de Boulogne, Bismarck wanted to extend the Ku’damm out as far as the Grunewald forest. However, such pretentions were never realised, and finally the avenue linked Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church to nothing grander than the Halensee railway station.

Café Kranzler

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The avenue lost almost all the Jugendstil architecture of its Wilhelminian heyday during World War II, and only a few vestiges survive. Otherwise the street is resolutely modern – gleaming glass, steel and an occasional touch of marble – but still a magnet for fashion-conscious shoppers.

Literaturhaus

Next door to the Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum is the Literaturhaus, where readings, seminars and discussions are held. The villa is surrounded by a delightful garden, and there is a pleasant café, the Café Wintergarten.

Kranzler Eck

Like so much of the city, this neighbourhood is in a constant state of redevelopment. The Kranzler Eck (Kranzler Corner), where the city’s most stylish citizens once stopped off for coffee and cakes, has been transformed by the addition of a stunning 16-storey glass skyscraper, designed by Helmut Jahn of Chicago and completed in 2002. As well as offices, the City Quartier has shops and restaurants.

Off the Ku’damm at Fasanenstraße 79, you will find the Jüdisches Gemeindezentrum (Jewish Community Centre). Framing the entrance is the domed portal from the synagogue, which was burned during the fateful Kristallnacht (‘Night of Broken Glass’) of 1938 (for more information, click here). The modern building serves as a cultural centre for the 12,000 Jews living in Berlin today – in 1933 they numbered some 170,000.

At Fasanenstraße 24 stands the intimate Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum (www.kaethe-kollwitz.de; daily 11am–6pm). On display is a comprehensive collection of sketches, drawings and sculptures by the artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945), whose work resounds with compassion as she makes appeals on behalf of the working poor, the suffering and the sick.

It is worth exploring some of the other side streets off the Ku’damm. As well as Fasanenstraße, you will discover many other elegant tree-lined boulevards studded with beautiful, balconied villas, antiques shops, art galleries and exclusive designer boutiques. A little to the north, Savignyplatz provides a focus for first-class art and architecture bookshops and art galleries, located in the arches beneath the overhead S-Bahn railway line. Here you will find an abundance of literary cafés, bistros and bars, with plenty of outside seating.

Breitscheidplatz

To the east of the Kranzler Eck, the Ku’damm leads through to Breitscheidplatz, a large pedestrianised area at the base of the Europa-Center and a busy gathering place for shoppers and sightseers during the day. In the centre of the square is Joachim Schmettau’s granite Weltkugelbrunnen (or Fountain of the World), which locals have cheerily christened the Wasserklops (‘aquatic meatball’).

Soaring above it is an enduringly powerful symbol of the city, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche 2 [map] (Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church; www.gedaechtniskirche-berlin.de; daily 9am–7pm; free). The 1943 bombing, combined with artillery fire at the end of the war, left the tower with the broken stump of its spire – 63m (206ft), compared with its original 113m (370ft) – as a monumental ruin recalling the city’s destruction. Flanking it, a modern octagonal church to the east and a chapel and hexagonal tower to the west represent the city’s post-war rebirth. Stained glass made in Chartres and set in walls of moulded concrete casts a mysterious bluish glow over the Ku’damm at night.

Built between 1891 and 1895 to honour Wilhelm I, the remains of this neo-Romanesque church constitute a memorial hall to celebrate the Hohenzollerns’ pious monarchism. A mosaic representing Christ the King is set above friezes and reliefs of Prussian monarchs from Friedrich I (1415–40) to the last crown prince, Friedrich Wilhelm. On one wall, Wilhelm I confers with Chancellor Bismarck and Field Marshals Moltke and Roon. With their taste for irreverent nicknames, Berliners have deflated the monuments’ imperial or pacifist intentions by dubbing the original church the ‘broken tooth’ and the two main additions the ‘lipstick’ and ‘powder compact’.

Christ the King mosaic in the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church

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Beyond the church is the enormous Europa-Center, between Tauentzienstraße and Budapester Straße. The centre was built in the 1960s and houses scores of shops, rest...