I guess you can’t leave Berlin without having seen the touristy stuff. I’m talking about the Holocause Memorial (please ignore the disrespectful people there, some of them are horrible), The Reichstag, the Brandenburger Tor, Unter Der Linden, bits of the wall spread across the city (ignore East Side Gallery), Museumsinsel (Museum Island – I only went to the Pergamon Museum and despite the hords of tourists it was worth it), Fernsehturm, Siegessäule, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächniskirche, Neue Synagoge.
Insider tip: just before the Brandeburger Tor there’s a bank building on your left. Go inside and witness some stunning, hidden architecture by Frank Gehry (you’ll recognize his style immediately).
(DZ Bank, interior)
But apart from that Berlin is also full of independent galleries and flooded with temporary exhibitions that are surely worth your time. We went to the following
The Art of Conversation: an exhibition with 10 design studios from London and 10 from Berlin that each showed how they felt/what they thought about the topic. Definitely worth a go (it’s ended now though, sadly) and there was also an interesting project we took part in.
Also, this was right next to Yoli Frozen Yoghurt, how much of a good combo is that?!
Museum of Photography / Helmut Newton Stiftung: well the name says it all really.
Downstairs ‘Helmut Newton’s Private Property’ was on display, which included lots of never-before-seen stuff (like a car designed especially for him that looked like a life size Barbie car, pretty hilarious) and photos of mr. Newton himself. And pictures of beautiful, naked ladies galore of course!
Apart from that there was a temporary exhibition running entitled ‘Alice Springs’ aka the name of Helmut Newton’s wife who was an actor as well as a gifted photographer. There was a big selection of portraits she did (most of them of pretty famous people) and also several fashion shots.
Last but not least, architecture photography on the second floor. Not bad, but it’s always more interesting to see buildings in real life instead of on small photos hung on a wall.
Jebensstrasse 2
(Museum of Photography/Helmut Newton Stiftung entrance)
Like in any other city there are numerous flea markets (and markets in general) to be found in Berlin on the weekend.
The most famous one takes place at Mauerpark but it gets pretty crowded and the sellers aren’t amateurs (i.e. high prices) so I’d suggest you go and take a look at Arkonaplatz first (only 2 streets away). Please note that they don’t start really early in the morning but at about 10AM.
Since we’re talking about markets anyway, it can be good to know that there is an LPG Biomarkt to be found in the Prenzlauer Berg area. Like an actual supermarket, only everything is organic.
Kollwitzstrasse 17
Next and last Berlin post will be about shopping. Be prepared,
Gerlin
