Meet the Germans | Rory's Berlin Blog | Goethe-Institut

    Lose yourself in the Tiergarten.  That’s my simple advice for the discovery and enjoyment of Berlin’s great 630 acres central park which stretches from the Brandenburg Gate in the east to Kurfürstendamm and the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church in the west.  Once a royal hunting ground, the Tiergarten reveals itself as a latticework of winding paths and arrow-straight avenues, intimate lakes and busy canals.  On foot and by bicycle, visitors move from wild Neuer See to the Neoclassical order of Schloß Bellevue, official residence of the new German president Joachim Gauck.  Children play in its dozen playgrounds, rock concerts are staged along its Straße des 17. Juni, gay Berliners congregate for open-air sunbathing in the fields along Hofjägerallee.  Pack a picnic, bring a Frisbee or badminton rackets, drop by the zoo and plan to spend the day.



Tiergarten

    To the north the Tiergarten is flanked by a loop of the overground S-Bahn line, with the stations Tiergarten and Bellevue providing the most convenient access to the park.  The BVG 200 bus – which runs from S+U Zoologischer Garten to Unter den Linden and Alexander Platz — follows its southern edge.  Step off at any stop or station and dive into the woods.  Travelling by chance, lightly, without expectations or a final destination opens one to the unexpected – and that is the finest way to experience the Tiergarten (as well as, arguably, life).  



    But as the day cools, or the stomach rumbles, it can be helpful to have a welcoming hostelry in mind.  To my mind nowhere beats the atmospheric Café am Neuen See, a Seventies glass pavilion dropped into the park, surrounded by old trees, fronting a lake, flooded with light and fantastic nosh.  In the summer its adjoining al-fresco beer garden serves salmon and cream cheese pizzas and southern German specialties as well as barbecued meat and fish.  Its Sunday brunch -- refined and civilised by Berliners into one of the world's most relaxing meals – is delicious.

    On any warm Berlin evening Simon-Dach-Straße buzzes with tens of thousands of people, its diners and drinkers spilling across the pavements of Wühlischstraße and Boxhagener Platz, revelling in the good life, happy to be in one of the trendiest corners of Europe.



    Friedrichshain is home to the world’s largest open-air gallery and many of its smallest, most intimate clubs.  Along Simon-Dach-Strasse partypeople trip from fondue restaurant to Thai cocktail bars, chatting with strangers, gazing into shops called Cupcakes and Trash-Schick.  A visitor’s greatest challenge is deciding what time of day or night to visit; in the morning for a Canadian brunch with Aunt Benny, afternoon kaffee-und-kuchen at Kuchenrausch, evening bar-hopping along Krossener Straße, or very-late-night (i.e. around dawn) clubbing at Berghain?  The choice is yours.

Saturday (and Sunday) in Boxhagener Platz

    Berlin has as many local markets as neighbourhoods and on weekend mornings locals and visitors alike lick, taste and smell in the open air from Kollwitzplatz to Pestalozzistrasse and Winterfeldtplatz.  In Friedrichshain the best known – and most popular – market is on Boxhagener Platz.  On Saturdays the focus is on food.  Sunday morning brings the antique dealers, vinyl collectors, jewellers and drop-dead-groovy clothing stalls.

    To join the party catch the S-Bahn to Warschauer Strasse (or the U1 to Schlesisches Tor if you want to start with a walk over the elaborate Oberbaumbrücke and the Spree).  Head north, enjoying the sight of spent-clubbers heading home after a night tripping the light fantastic.  Turn right – or eastwards – into Revalerstrasse, glide by the RAW-Tempel, a warehouse-cum-arts-centre and – depending on the time – enjoy the heavy techno beat rising from the Cassiopeia club.   Turn right at Simon-Dach-Strasse and drift towards Boxhagener Platz.  You don’t need me to suggest a place to stop for your second -- or third -- coffee, the choice is huge, but my favourite spot is Café Szimpla, a Hungarian jewel at Gärtnerstrasse 15 with fine coffee, evening music and the occasional share ‘n’ show artist night.  



    Enjoy, indulge and -- if you can ever motivate yourself to leave -- wander northwest to Frankfurter Tor (U5) and gawk at the twin Stalinist towers on Karl-Marx-Allee, part of East Germany’s monumental socialist boulevard built after World War Two.

    No one has ever called me a fashion victim.  On Sunday mornings I like to slob around in a tattered dressing gown.  On weekdays I write in ancient track trousers and a patched sweater.  Only last week did my long-suffering wife finally persuade me to throw out my father’s moth-eaten cardigan (he died way back in 1973).

    Most Berliners don’t care how they look or what people think of their look.  Just ask any of the ‘forever young’ geriatrics who cycle around Friedrichshain in pink hot pants, smoking cheroots, with a Chihuahua balanced in their bicycle basket.  

    Berlin – with its passion for grunge -- suits my total disregard for fashion.  So it may come as a surprise that one of my favourite strolls is along the city’s catwalk, Alte and Neue Schönhauser Straße.



A Fashion Victim’s Catwalk

    Twenty five years ago the streets around Hackescher Markt were grey with crumbling walls and lost hopes.  Most old buildings hadn’t been ripped down as had happened elsewhere in the eastern half of the city.  The Communist authorities had decided not to seize and demolished the once-Jewish-owned properties so as to deny Western media another chance to liken them to the Nazis.

    Hence when the Wall fell, Hackescher Markt retained some of the richest, mixed-use architecture in East Berlin.  Squatters and artists moved in, and were pushed out by trendy money, transforming the area into one of the hippest places in town.

    The walk starts at Hackescher Markt S-Bahn station.  First head north into Hackesche Höfe, a complex of eight interconnected courtyards reached off Rosenthaler Straße.  Enjoy the hugely popular ‘New Berlin’ mix of businesses and residences, theatres and cinemas, art galleries, boutiques, bars and restaurants.  Now strike out up Neue Schönhauser Straße, past dozens of trendy temples of fashion (and the Goethe Institut Berlin).  At the top of the street is Caras, arguably the capital’s favourite café.  But to my mind one should stroll on to Tor Straße, turn left to Rosenthaler Platz and indulge in a fantastic latte macchiato at the hilarious St. Oberholz.  Now head south down Rosenthaler Straße and back to Hackescher Markt.  



    On a bike this short circuit could be completed in under ten minutes.  But on foot, with stops for coffee and a meal – as well as sufficient lèche-vitrine (or ‘window-licking’), expect it to take at least three hours.

    Berlin is encircled by lakes and bisected by the Spree hence – given the efficiency of both the U-Bahn and S-Bahn – it’s a doddle to get out of city and spend a day by the water.  As all trains have designated carriages for bicycles, embarking on a two-wheeled ‘walk’ could not be easier ... as long as you remember to pay the €1.50 bicycle supplement.



Großer Müggelsee and Treptow

    Ride the S-Bahn east to Rahnsdorf, then bus (or cycle) south to Müggelwerderweg and one of the small BVG urban transport piers.  The little, once-an-hour F23 ferry potters across die Bänke, with its sleepy harbour, to Neu Helgoland with a delightful waterside restaurant-hotel-cum-concert hall.  This is the venue for Germany’s wackiest programme of ‘Ost-Rock’ and cover bands.  On any evening you could hear an ersatz-AC/DC, Joe Cocker or Bruce Springsteen.  But be warned; if you settled in for a beer you may not leave for days.

    Head west along the south shore of the Müggelsee, the city’s largest lake.  Strand yourself at the ‘gestrandet’ beach bar, go for a swim or rent a paddleboat complete with waterslide.  With a forest on your left, and the water on your right, this walk – or ride – is one of the most tranquil inner-city excursions in Europe.



    At the lake’s western end walkers can take the Spreetunnel under the river and back toward the S-Bahn Friedrichshagen, pausing for a bout of window shopping along Bölschestrasse, the so-called ‘boulevard of the east’.   Cyclists should push on along the Spree’s south bank, past canoe and rowing clubs, eyeing the elegant riverside conversions on the opposite shore.  Ahead lies Köpenick, a relaxed yet quirky one-time fishing village and Slavic fortress which – according to existing records – is older than Berlin itself.  Quirky?  The town hall’s ‘basement’ restaurant is on the first floor and its prison is on Freiheit (freedom) Strasse.  Above all Köpenick is known for the antics of Wilhelm Voigt, an unemployed shoemaker who in 1906 masqueraded as a Prussian officer and confiscated the town’s treasury, cocking-a-snoop at the-then unquestioning habit of deferring to men in uniform.  
    Now idle at a waterside bar, watch the sunset and hang around until June when the jazz and blues music festival is in town.  Alternatively catch the tram back into the city.

    As I wrote last week, a city is best discovered on foot so over the next month I’m sketching out my favourite Berlin strolls.   I’ll post two every week, and I ask you to use them only as a rough guide.  I believe that to really know a place, you have to discover it by yourself.



The Government Quarter

    At U Zoologischer Garten, the centre of old West Berlin, catch the 100 bus to the stop Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of the Cultures of the World).  Circle America’s ‘pregnant oyster’, the culture centre gifted to the city in 1957, and the new Bundeskanzleramt (the Chancellery), the largest government headquarters building in the world (eight times the size of the White House).  No prize for figuring out why it’s called the Bundeswaschmaschine, or federal washing machine.  Across the Platz der Republik, climb to the top of the Reichstag (note: a visit to Foster’s dome must now be booked at least 48 hours in advance).  Immediately to the south-west (and across the line of the old Berlin Wall – watch for the bricks in the pavement) is the Brandenburger Tor.  Few monuments in the world have witnessed greater tragedy and euphoria.  Beyond the US Embassy is the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, or the Jewish Memorial.  Allow yourself to become lost and disorientated among its 2,711 concrete stellae, and reflect on how architect Peter Eisenman positioned the outer slabs low against the ground so that they would seem to fan out into the whole city.   



    Now consider the courage needed to take responsibility for a terrible chapter of ones history. Berlin’s determination to face the past – and the conviction that the psychic health of a society depends on past atrocities being unearthed and confessed as a condition of healing – has contributed to making it such a dynamic city today.