weekdays in Berlin

Babel on Kastanienallee for falafel/haloumi (chili sauce, garlic, mango and mint for the filling). Station B for music, Da Capo for drunks selling you music. Helmholtzplatz and Kollwitzplatz are not bad for cafes. Hit the Mauerpark for a glimpse of the Wall. Volkspark Friedrichshain is a good "little" park (Schoenbrunn is a nice cafe/resto). Check out NBI, Bassy or 8MM bar on Schöhnhauserallee. Helsinki Bar on the same street might be interesting. Lychener Str. has some good bars, record shops (Radio Nord) and restos.

Hope that helps. Go with number one for sure.

maybe you should go to Kopenick's and have the original Currywurst. There's nice record shops around there too.

Er, that's impossible. (I should know, I live on the KMA.) You must mean Alexanderplatz.

You should also go up the Fernseheturm on the Alexanderplatz.

what a city. i really wanted to find something snide to say about berlin because of all the props it gets but so far no dice

If you're there at the end of the month, PopKomm is on.

Just a few suggestions.

REVIVE!

I'm going to Berlin with the missus mid-Nov. I'm sure a lot of the above advice is still ccurrent, so thanks for that.

Anyone got any current tips? We'll be there early Sat 14-late Tue 18 Nov so plenty of time wander. Especially keen on seeing some Proper History, Wall-related stuff, fernsehturm, Ostalgie relics etc.

Looks like we'll be staying near Schlesisches Tor U-Bahn if that helps, but that's not confirmed so hotel/hostel tips much appreciated too!

I am so jealous. I spent the summer of 1983 in West Berlin as an exchange student when the wall was still there. I loved it so much. Have visited once since soon after the wall fell. I bet the city is amazing now. Have fun!

Last time I went was 1996 and I can remember very little due to being ruinously tired and rather pissed throughout. The time before (1990) I was 14, got lost and nearly had to spend the night at Bahnhof Zoo on my own! Totally going back there to retrace my steps and see exacvtly how much of a fuckwit I was back then.

The Volkspark Friedrichshain was pretty awesome, in that gray, windswept way of East Berlin

I might be going around that time to SEE the missus! Will be keeping tabs on any advice supplied herein.

Anyone got any current tips? We'll be there early Sat 14-late Tue 18 Nov so plenty of time wander. Especially keen on seeing some Proper History, Wall-related stuff, fernsehturm, Ostalgie relics etc.

If you interested in such matters, go the the Gay Museum (Schwule Museum) is totally worth a visit. It's not very big but has tons of information on the Berlin gay scene and German gay history in general from the 19th century onwards.

I was in Berlin last month, and I also visited the former Stasi/Soviet interrogation prison, which they've kept almost intact from the days before The Wall fell down. They have guided tours there, and it's really quite interesting, but also quite depressive with detailed descriptions of various physical and psychological torture and interrogation methods. I think they may have English-language tours only on Saturdays though. But if you know German, the German-language guides are people who actually used to be prisoners in that jail, so that should be even more interesting.

the place we may be staying at is "the border between Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain and Treptow" if that's any help...

Thanks Tuomas - I speak German but my gf doesn't, so I suspect we'll end up doing English tours. Any idea of tha name of the interrogation place?

They also have a general East Germany museum ("DDR Museum") which is in a walking distance from Alexanderplatz, on the bank of the river Spree. It's a bit populist but also very well designed, with stuff like a replica of an actual DDR flat.

(x-post)

I can't remember the name of the prison right now, but I can find it out, will post it here later.

Here's the site for the prison, it's called Hohenschönhausen http://en.stiftung-hsh.de/. It's a bit away from the centre, but you can get there by tram.

The general English tour seems to start at 2 PM on Saturdays, if you can make it I'd definitely recommend it.

And if you want to go record shopping for electronic music, the best store I've found in Berlin is Spacehall in Kreuzberg. It's especially good if you're looking for older records, since they have lots of hard-to-find stuff from the 90s.

If you like vegetarian/vegan food, this place called Cafe Morgenrot on Kastanienallee serves a very nice and cheap vegetarian brunch of Sundays.

this is all aces, thanks!

Check out the flohmarkt in Mauerpark on Sunday.

CharlieNo4, you should walk down some of Karl Marx Allee, it is a great advertisement for socialism. And go to Karl Marx Buchhandlung. All the books will be in German, but so what? For ker-azzy DDR action, taking the metro out to the old Stasi headquarters in Lichtenberg (?) is good fun too. I think you can visit the HQ, if you are there when Jupiter is rising into the house of Aquarius and Saturn is in the seventh quadrant; I've never managed it myself, but it's great to walk around.

The Checkpoint Charlie museum is maybe not all that, but Cafe Adler across from it is GRATE - drink your milky and eat your strudel, and imagine that all the other tourists are spies on secret assignations.

If you are looking for places to stay, consider the Transit Loft in Prenzlauerberg or the other Transit place in Kreuzberg. Both cheap and cheerful, but you can get an en suite room to yourselves (but no TV) for not much cash.

Where is Schleissheeschesh Tor again?

this is reminding me of how I am meant to post my picture of Third Reich Parking Lot up on the internet somtime.

I'm staying in Warschauer Platz between the 5th and the 8th. Anything of note (I hear Neue Heimat is nice) around there (or in general) I should check out? Champions League final is on the 6th of course. I was in Berlin in '09 but I think I might get round to doing more touristy stuff this time.