Berlin - 10 must see places in the city
- Pirouette Blog
- Jul 7, 2019
- 5 min read
A couple of months ago I visited the city of Berlin and honestly is was one of the best cities I have been to. The main feeling I got was that it is a very youthful city - it is young, fresh and embracing modern trends. It was a bit of a dream the whole weekend and I would go back in a heartbeat. The only trouble with Berlin is that there are so many amazing places to visit so I have rounded up some of the highlights so you make sure you get the best bits covered.
1 - DDR museum
This is a museum based on life in the DDR ( East Germany). It is a very interactive museum with thousands of artefacts from the time which helps you to really feel immersed and absorbed in what life was like. They even have a full sized soviet apartment which was amazing to look around. It is also built beside the river and opposite the cathedral so is certainly worth a walk to.
2 - Palace of Tears Museum
This museum is at the heart of the divide between east and west, in fact is built on to the train station and is the building that use to house the gates where you could travel from one side of the city to another. They have re -models of the desks where you would hand over your travel documents, and it harrowing to see the mirrors, electric doors and tiny space you had to move. Entry is free and, for a small museum it holds a lot of information.
3 - Berlin zoo
So, I like a zoo but I am not a die-hard fan. However, Berlin zoo blew me away! The animals range from giraffes, to elephants, to pandas to polar bears. It has really nice enclosures with no metal bars or glass so you feel up close and personal with the amazing creatures. The zoo is also one of the world's biggest contributors to conservation.
4 - TV tower
Again I am not the biggest fan of heights and towers, I do not have a fear they just do not particularly do anything for me. Yet, this is a once once in a lifetime experience that you are missing out on if you do not do it! The sights from up there, looking over the city are breathtaking and you can see all the cars going round the streets like little bugs and you can see planes taking off on the horizon. We went up there at dusk which I would certainly recommend because when we were first up there it was light enough to be able to work out which street we were looking at but by the end of the hour is was dark so the illumination of the streetlights was beautiful.
5 - Stasi Prison
This is a former, Stasi prison from the soviet era of East Berlin. You can visit all areas of prison for political prisoners accompanied by a well-informed guide. It is also a steal because it is deeply hidden within an old soviet housing estate ( as was intended when it was built) so it is less busy than the other museums because you would only find it if you were looking for it specifically. It is very harrowing but interesting at the same time and after the seeing the rooms of interrogation left exactly as they were at the time you come away deep in thought.
stasi prison.
6 - British and American museum
This museum is located in the west of Berlin in the former American sector of Berlin. In fact the museum itself is situated within an old American cinema. They have one of the aircraft used in the Berlin blockade which was great to go into. I also found the train really interesting as it was used to transport American soldiers in and out of the city through east Germany. During this time they had to keep the blinds closed throughout the journey as the soviets did not want anyone to see inside their sector.
7 - Checkpoint Charlie
Checkpoint charlie was a checkpoint where people could travel between east and west Berlin. It was officially checkpoint C and was the busiest checkpoint, but was nicknamed as checkpoint Charlie. The checkpoint itself is little more than a hut which is quite an anti-climax considering the lines of crowds miles deep. However the museum is more than worth a visit. It is all about the amazing ways people managed to escape east Berlin including the actual cars adapted to smuggle people out underneath them. There is tons and tons of information plastered all over the walls which emphasises just how much the division of Berlin affected people.
8 - Brandenburg Gate
This is kind of a given but how could I not include it? In terms of time this is not going to take you all day to visit but is definitely worth wandering down to because it is easily accessible by foot. I think it is one of the most imposing monuments I have visited and looking up at it from the ground I actually felt a sense of freedom. There is a Starbucks with lots of outdoor seating opposite which is the perfect place to stop for a drink and admire the views.
9- Medical museum
This is not in the list of most visited attractions but was one of the best parts of the trip for me. Situated in Berlin university is a medical museum with thousands of medical related artefacts. There is too much to list but my favourite room was a room full of all kinds of body parts dissected from real people and preserved by medical students. Most of them had all kinds of diseases ranging from small to large tumours and to diseased hearts.They also had the remains of the old lecture hall used to teach medical students hundreds of years ago. It is not something for everyone but for anyone medical minded like myself it was brilliant!
10. Holocaust Memorial
The memorial is simple in many respects. Thousands of concrete blocks. Some tall. Some small. No description, or writing. Yet it conveys a message more powerful than any of the museums. I think that this is because it is so simple and non-descript that you have to think about it rather than in a museum where you read something and forget about it as soon as you leave. This is certainly a must see and you can interpret it however your mind chooses.
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