This is the first installment of guides to places I love. If we have things in common, then you might like to go and see the pretty establishments below when you visit Berlin. Also I am just to lazy to tell the same old stories every time someone asks me about Berlin, so here you go! If you like it, you can sign up for my newsletter here and I´ll send you all future guides.
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Art and culture in Berlin
Oh, where to start? There is a whole island of museums right in the city centre. If you like museums, you will love Berlin. Unfortunately entrance is not free or donation based like in the UK, so if you want to see a few, it might be worth getting a day pass. My favorite is the Pergamon Museum. Check out current exhibitions, opening hours and prices for the bigger museums in English here. These are a couple of smaller galleries that I really like:
Galerie Endart - Founded by mad artists in the 80ies, still one of the best places for crazy art in Europe. Oranienstraße 36, Kreuzberg
Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien - A beautiful place with group exhibitions around social and political themes, go see! www.kunstraumkreuzberg.de
http://www.artkreuzberg.de/ - a great website to check current exhibitions and art events in Kreuzberg.
You should also check the exhibitions at the Universität der Künste – Berlin`s famous art college – http://www.udk-berlin.de/sites/content/topics/home/index_eng.html
Queer stuff that makes Berlin even queerer
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Spinnboden – the lesbian library
Did you know that Berlin has the biggest lesbian archive and library in Europe that holds all kinds of documentations about lesbian life? I know. It´s open wednesdays and fridays, 2-7 pm. You´ll leave wanting to do a PhD. spinnboden.de
Gay Museum Berlin
This is an exiting, beautiful museum and archive with all of the things about queerness. Even though it`s called “Schwules Museum” (gay as in gay men), it features a variety of exhibitions around all kinds of queer things and hosts nice parties and interesting talks. schwulesmuseum.de
Bend over magazine
Reading this always makes me feel like I am in Berlin, possibly in a dirty queer bar in Kreuzberg. Bend over is sex/body/everything positive, Berlin based and brings together some of the most exiting and promising queer artists. Its a mix of photography, poetry and other writing and definitely worth its price. http://www.bendovermagazine.com/
TransInterQueer e.V.
This amazing organisation organizes great community events, offers valuable support and publishes really interesting work on gender and sexuality in both English and German. If you´re new in Berlin and would like a new queer family, this is a great starting point. They also offer queer yoga on thursday nights www.transinterqueer.org
Department for Gender Studies, Humboldt Universität
Perfect starting point if you are geeky about gender. The faculty organizes lots of talks and workshops and can hook you up with researchers and recourses of all kinds. http://www.gender.hu-berlin.de/
Where to hang out in nice vegan cafe`s and bars if you trying to make a point of not being a hipster
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I don`t really want to tune into the whole hipster-hating thing, but here are a few nice, unpretentious places that will welcome you in your pyjama with second day hair:
Cafè Vux – Neukölln
This is a really cute, completely vegan place with awesome cake, cookies and cuties. Not the most central location down in Neukölln, but definitely worth a visit and very affordable. The lavender cake is from heaven! http://www.vux-berlin.com/
Jivamukti Vegan Cafè – Mitte
The perfect place to hang out after yoga – prices are a little higher, but everything is made super fresh and super organic and super healthy. http://www.jivamuktiberlin.de/
Veganladen Kollektiv – Neukölln
Awesome vegan collective with everything from vegan sausages (its german after all) to ice cream, chocolate, almond milk and cosmetics. The little cafè in the corner is a great place to chill and read one of the many books that lie around. http://www.veganladen-kollektiv.net/veganladen/
Freckles Café – Kreuzberg
Another completely vegan place with soups, cake, tea and really shiny, happy people. http://www.frecklesheaven.com/
Bars and cafés around Simon-Dach-Straße – Friedrichshain
I wont list every good bar in Friedrichshain, there are just way too many. If you just want good, cheap drinks this street is a good place to be. Its so popular with students and tourists that all the bars are competing like crazy with 241 and happy hour deals.
All summer long there is a mini-festival in Mauerpark in Prenzlauer Berg every sunday with karaoke (some of the are actually really good), international food and an amazing playground. The atmosphere and the music is definitely worth getting out of bed for.
A great walk for street art, little shops and beautiful views
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If you´d like to aimlessly wander around Berlin for a couple of hours, I´d recommend this route as it leads you to some of the best street art, cafès and shops:
Start at the Moritzplatz train station in Kreuzberg and walk down Oranienstraße. It might seem a little grey in the beginning, but as you walk towards Görlitzer Bahnhof you`ll see beautiful cafe`s and lots of little independently owned shops. You could make a detour down Adalbergstraße which will lead you to the “Paul Linke Ufer”, a great place to hang out in the sunshine by the river. When you´ve had enough of that, walk further down Oranienstraße till you get to Görlitzer Bahnhof where you´ll cross the road and get into Wiener Straße. The off license shop at the crossing is a great place to stock up on “Wegbier” (a special word for beer in your pocket for journeys). Now you wanna get into Görlitzer Park, a nice little park where you can rest on the bench and look at weird arty installations (don`t go there alone in the night though). Next walk down the Falkensteinstraße before you get to Schlesisches Tor. Lots of street art, good food and river views right there! Now cross over to Friedrichshain using the Oberbaumbrücke and you´ll likely come across some musicians and take some pictures of the tower. Here you can look at a piece of the Berlin wall just after you get off the bridge on the left. Next walk all the way up Warschauer Straße till you turn right into Boxhagener Straße where you´ll be rewarded for your hard walking work with very cheap cocktails and lots of nice shops.
Yoga in Berlin
Berlin is full of good places to practice yoga, some of them are very close to my heart:
Sivananda Berlin
I first trained at a Sivananda school and recommend this place to anyone new to yoga who would love a welcoming, inclusive and authentic introduction to yoga. Courses and drop ins are affordable and varied. www.sivananda.org/berlin/
Jivamukti Yoga
There are now two Jivamukti studios in Berlin, both of them are offering really inspiring classes and a great community. Check out the kirtan evenings in Kreuzberg – really lovely mantra music with candle lights and vegan chocolate. http://www.jivamuktiberlin.com/
Yoga Bubble
This place is very friendly and inclusive, most of the classes are taught in English.
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What to do at night
The party scene in Berlin is legendary around the world for good reasons. In a way there is a limited point in listing good parties here as they change all the time, yet there are a couple of places that might stand the test of time. Generally it is much more common to have late night dinner and predrinks at friend`s homes in Germany, mostly because people don`t live in shoebox rooms like british people do, so there is space to cook and hang out with very large groups. Predrinks = “Vorglühen”. I so miss this in the UK! Anyway, many clubs don`t open till midnight and bouncers will look at you funny if you show up too early. I know it`s pretentious, but what can you do? If you´re unsure about what to do, it`s a good idea to have a walk across Warschauer Brücke as it connects Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg, East and West and therefore serves as a party junction with musicians playing and people throwing flyers for parties at you.
Tante Horst
The name is a cute gender-smashing word game in German, I love this place! They serve good, reasonably priced drinks. No pink lemonade/cocktail nonsense, but great beer and cake all night long. There are always plenty of flyers for queer parties lying around in the bathroom, definitely a great place to start the night and be flirty with cute queers of all the genders. The central location in Kreuzberg also leaves all options open for the night. www.tantehorst.de/en/
Berghain
This old warehouse is said to have the best sound system in the world. Once you´re in, anything goes. Well, anything but lighting up a dark room or taking pictures. The bouncers here can be very choosy and will want to avoid tourists, so best to look as if you don`t have any fucks to give about getting in or not. You are, after all, a cosmopolitan, sexy person ready to spend your hard earned cash at the bar, right? Gay men are definitely a majority here, but generally its a mixed space. It´s easy to be swept away by the atmosphere and to stay much longer than you intended to since the club is open non stop from thursday to sunday. The Guardian call this place liberal, disorientating, brutal and beautiful, I can totally see why. If you´re into electro, you should definitely experience Berghain once, but don`t make any plans for the next day and choose a different club if you want something low key, unpretentious and cheap. http://berghain.de/
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Schwuz
Schwuz is a social centre for gay men, but also runs awesome parties for all kinds of unicorns. Very unpretentious, cheap and fun. http://www.schwuz.de/
Club der Visionäre (club of visionaries)
Awesome in the summer, not cheap, but very beautiful. Great post-party if you don`t want the night to end and the sun is already coming up. clubdervisionaere.com/
Rosi´s
If Rosi´s was a person, it would be a cute, bookish, dorky kind of human with sexy glasses and a great smile. Good for indy parties, small concerts and table football. http://www.rosis-berlin.de/
SO36
Even if it isn`t a queer club, it kind of can`t help being super queer. Awesome parties, especially love the bad taste ones. www.so36.de
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Where to stay and where to move
Kreuzberg – hip, scruffy, sexy, raw, medium cheap
Neukölln – very scruffy, creative, dirty, very cheap
Friedrichshain – hip, studenty, exiting, chaotic, medium cheap
Mitte – posh, touristy, interesting, arty, more expensive
Wedding – apparently up and coming, definitely still cheap
Prenzlauer Berg – grown up, organic, beautiful, mumsy, more expensive
Gentrification does happen in Berlin, but things move way slower than in London for example. You can still feel strong differences between East and West and the wall came down in 1989, so… The cheapest yet hip place is definitely Neukölln. You can get a studio for 450 Euros a month incl bills and a small double bedroom for 250+ Euros. Way back when I lived there in 2009 I paid 180 Euros a month for a good sized double, but you wont come across these prices often anymore. If you´re happy to spend a little more, search in Kreuzberg or Friedrichshain where you want to be as close to Oranienstraße or Simon-Dach-Straße as possible because this is where the magic happens. Many houses in Berlin are still not modernized, so if you don`t mind things being a little scruffy, you can find beautiful places for a quarter of what you´d pay in the UK. Generally tenants have more rights than in other countries. If you are in doubt, contact the mieterbund.de, which is a collective of tenants that can give you legal advice cheap or for free.
If you are just staying for a short period of time, I would recommend finding a hostel in Kreuzberg or Friedrichshain. That way you´ll have good access to the rest of the city and great bars and cafè all around you. Mitte is more central, but too expensive. These hostels are good:
Baxpax Kreuzberg
PERFECT location, dorms from 8 Euros, super clean, friendly staff, can get very noisy in the night. Not ideal if you are looking to settle in Berlin and want a quiet place to stay, but amazing for a party weekend. http://baxpax.de/en/kreuzberg/
Die Fabrik Kreuzberg
This is a beautiful old warehouse with individually designed rooms. A little more expensive with dorms starting at 18 Euros, great location with a cute cafè. http://www.diefabrik.com/
Eastern Comfort
A boat! Right between Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg you can sleep on a cute boat with prices starting from 16 Euros. Great if you want the best of both East and West, not ideal if you´re coming home drunk and feel sea sick. www.eastern-comfort.com/en/home/
If you are staying for a couple of weeks its worth looking for a sublet. Its very common for students who go on longer vacations to rent out their rooms. On www.wg-gesucht.de or www.studenten-wg.de you might even find english ads from people keen to improve their English who would love to live with crazy foreigners like you.
Feel free to leave a comment if you have more ideas or suggestions and sign up for my newsletter if you`d like to receive future city guides!
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