and its architecture. It has a lovely mixture of old and new buildings, with street art and quirky features like the mixture of traffic lights.
I went to Berlin in October, so thought I would share some of my favourite finds, restaurants and museums.
Travelling and Getting Around
We travelled with from Manchester to Schönefeld Airport with Ryanair (which I was a little scared that they wouldn't accept all my baggage...haha I had one tiny suitcase and a backpack).
From the airport to the city we got a train, and then a short walk to the hotel. For the rest of the week, we mainly walked around which killed my feet, but for the normal person, you might be alright.
The Hotel
art'otel Berlin Mitte, which was lovely, the bed was so comfy. Close to everything, without being super loud and busy. This picture was taken on the way to the airport on the last day. We didn't eat at the hotel, we chose to eat in small restaurants around the city, or have a cereal bar and some fruit.
Museums
I didn't want to go to too many museums, but I did want to go to some of the big and fun ones. The two below pictures are from museum island, where we visited the Neues Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie and Pergamon Museum. Which are all really popular museums, which sometimes you need to queue to get in, and they have a lot of pictures and artefacts not just about German history.
spy museum
The spy museum was really interesting, it showed a history of spies, including through the wars, and then it has loads of instruments that have been used over the years to help gather information. There's a laser game, which you can try out and then send the video to yourself, and lots about spy films as well. This museum is a fun one for adults and children.
currywurst museum
This quirky little museum shows the history of the currywurst sausage which is a speciality in Germany. There's giant fast food, and lots of fun features to explore and relate too. If you're a serious person you won't like this museum, you do get a tiny sample of sausage at the end though.
Shops and Food
This cafe was on the ground floor of a hotel, and made me some amazing oreo pancakes. If you love a breakfast that fills you up, visit the yada yada breakfast club. Unfortunately, we only found this cafe on the last full day, so I fully urge you to go out and explore more around the hotel.
The Big Dog Berlin, if you like fun restaurants or sausage dog illustrations, this is a quirky place. It's under the Marriot hotel and just down the road from the Reichstag building, Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust memorial.
We found this place called 'Seaside' on the night of The Day of German Unity, which made it incredibly hard to find any open restaurants. We walked in here thinking we could get some simple fish and chips. Nah, this was an expensive fish restaurant by night and you paid by the weight of the fish. Saying that on reflection it was one of the nicest fish meals I have ever had. The waiter de-boned the fish for us, noticed it wasn't cooked enough, so swiftly too it away to be cooked more.
It was quite a walk to this Streetfood market which is on a thursday, it was super busy, and really hard to find
anywhere to sit with my poor old person feet. The walk from the hotel was quite long, and down a few creepy, dodgy streets.
This food market brings people together from all over the city. People walk around with glasses of wine, and theres many stalls for different food, there was oysters, waffles...a little bit of everything.
Art
Lots of art near the walll....
Other great things
Riechstag building:
Book ahead for the parliament building, its lovely at night for views of all the lights
The city has shops dedicated to the ampelman who is on all of the traffic lights on the east side of the wall.
The TV Tower is also a great place to view a sunset, watch the traffic headlights and trams/trains at night. You can also eat at the top and have a few cocktails.
Hope you enjoy some of the highlights of my trip, and i hope they are useful to anyone else that goes to visit Berlin.
PS if your english and love primark, they have a shop in the city too!
