This guide is ment to be a guide for those who are visiting Berlin during a weekend or a week and need some hints on what there is to do. This guide is made based on my own long weekend trip and doesn’t cover for that reason so much. It could anyway give you some ideas :)
My opinion is that architecturally Berlin is quite ugly with such a mix of different styles and different time-periods. The people in the city are really nice and friendly and you don't have to be able to speak german to survive. The city is fun and cute.
SHOPPING
Berlin has a few malls and a few places where to buy all the Zaras and Mangos but the nicest shopping places are in my opinion on two special places. The first place is the street called ”Kastanienalle” which is one long street with colourful buildings on both sides. It seems like every second place is a cafeteria and every second is a cute little shop. The shops sell trendy clothes, shoes, cd’s and lp’s, books for cheap prices and of brands you never heard of. The area has also a lot of bed & breakfast places and they all looked very cosy from outside. Here are some pictures of the area:
The other shoppingplace that I fell totally in love with was a few streets… Rosenthaler Strasse, Neue Schönhauser Strasse, Münzstrasse and all the roads near these. There you can find all kinds of jeans shops like Pepe Jeans, Fred Perry, Levi’s… some brands like Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger but also my favorites: COS and Comptoir des Cotonniers. The area has also nice bagel places, trendy furniture shops and some boutiques where they sell handicraft. I bought my hand made leather clutch on Oranienburger Strasse.
RESTAURANTS
Near Hackesher Markt and between Hackesher Markt and Alexanderplatz you can find restaurants with a nice atmosphere, good food, big portions and cheap prices. I fell in love with an italian restaurant on Rosenthaler Strasse, almost in the corner of Rosenthaler Strasse and Neue Schönhauser Strasse, next to the bagel place. It looked from the outside as one of those touristic places but it was totally different from the inside. I loved the place so much that Francesco and I had a 4 hour dinner there!
THE BERLIN ZOO
The Zoo is a place worth visiting in any age, any feeling, any time of the year. There are all kinds of cool animals and the zoo itself is builded in a supercool way. I enjoyed particularly the ice bears, giraffes, penguins, hippos, elephants and gorillas!
MUSEUMS
We visited two museums in Berlin, both really cool and not boring at all.
Jüdisches Museum:A museum worth visiting only beacause of it's architecture. It is designed by architect Daniel Libeskind and is really cool. The place in the museum that really stayed in my mind was the Voids.
The museum had also more positive and nice attractions and don't miss the cool museum shop!
The other cool museum is the Bauhaus museum of the architect and design school. It was forbidden to take any pictures inside the museum but we liked it. There were many good ideas and styles of lamp design, furniture design, building design and painting.
Please comment (in any language) if you have something to tell about Berlin. In that way this guide becomes even better!
