Must-see attractions in Berlin
Historic Mitte
This compelling exhibit tells stories of terror and persecution in Nazi Germany.
City West & Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg Palace is one of Berlin's few sites that still reflect the one-time grandeur of the Hohenzollern clan, which ruled the region from 1415 to…
Berlin
This museum ranks among the world's finest and most comprehensive collections of European art with about 1500 paintings spanning the arc of artistic…
Historic Mitte
It’s been burned, bombed, rebuilt, buttressed by the Wall, wrapped in fabric and finally turned into the modern home of the German parliament by Norman…
Berlin
Victims of Stasi persecution often ended up in this grim remand prison, now a memorial site officially called Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Tours …
Historic Mitte
If you’re wondering what the Germans have been up to for the past 1500 years, take a spin around the baroque Zeughaus, formerly the Prussian arsenal and…
Historic Mitte
Inaugurated in 2005, this football-field-sized memorial by American architect Peter Eisenman consists of 2711 sarcophagi-like concrete columns rising in…
Berlin
The rebirth of the historic Potsdamer Platz was Europe's biggest building project of the 1990s, a showcase of urban renewal masterminded by such top…
Kreuzberg
In a landmark building by American-Polish architect Daniel Libeskind, Berlin’s Jewish Museum offers a chronicle of the trials and triumphs in 2000 years…
Prenzlauer Berg
For an insightful primer on the Berlin Wall, visit this outdoor memorial, which extends for 1.4km along Bernauer Strasse and integrates an original…
Berlin
Berlin’s rulers used to hunt boar and pheasants in the rambling Tiergarten until garden architect Peter Lenné landscaped the grounds in the 19th century…
Historic Mitte
A symbol of division during the Cold War, the landmark Brandenburg Gate now epitomises German reunification. Carl Gotthard Langhans found inspiration in…
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart
Berlin
Berlin's contemporary art showcase opened in 1996 in an old railway station, whose grandeur is a great backdrop for this Aladdin's cave of paintings,…
Berlin
Designed by Helmut Jahn, the visually dramatic Sony Center is fronted by a 26-floor, glass-and-steel tower and integrates rare relics from the prewar era…
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Berlin
This Nazi-era bunker presents one of Berlin's finest private contemporary art collections, amassed by advertising guru Christian Boros who acquired the…
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Berlin
Fossils and minerals don’t quicken your pulse? Well, how about Tristan, the T-Rex? His skeleton is among the best-preserved in the world and, along with…
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Berlin
The Hackesche Höfe is the largest and most famous of the courtyard ensembles peppered throughout the Scheunenviertel. Built in 1907, the eight interlinked…
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Prenzlauer Berg
It was the most advanced planetarium in East Germany at its opening in 1987 and after the recent renovation it has upped the scientific, technology and…
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Historic Mitte
This graceful square is bookended by the domed German and French cathedrals and punctuated by a grandly porticoed concert hall, the Konzerthaus. It was…
Friedrichshain
Berlin’s oldest public park has provided relief from urbanity since 1840, but has been hilly only since the late 1940s, when wartime debris was piled up…
City West & Charlottenburg
Berlin's zoo holds a triple record as Germany's oldest (since 1844), most species-rich and most popular animal park. Top billing at the moment goes to a…
Historic Mitte
Checkpoint Charlie was the principal gateway for foreigners and diplomats between the two Berlins from 1961 to 1990. Unfortunately, this potent symbol of…
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Kreuzberg
The airfield of Tempelhof Airport, which so gloriously handled the Berlin airlift of 1948–49, has been repurposed as one of the largest urban parks in the…
Schloss Charlottenburg - Neuer Flügel
City West & Charlottenburg
The palace’s most beautiful rooms are the flamboyant private chambers of Frederick the Great, designed in 1746 by the period's star architect Georg…
City West & Charlottenburg
Classic modern art is the ammo of this delightful museum where Picasso is especially well represented, with paintings, drawings and sculptures from all…
Berlin
With its mosaics, terracotta reliefs and airy atrium, this Italian Renaissance–style exhibit space named for its architect (Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius…
Berlin
Europe’s fastest lift, Panoramapunkt yo-yos up and down the red-brick postmodern Kollhoff Tower in 20 seconds. From the bilevel viewing platform at a…
Berlin
The gleaming gold dome of the Neue Synagoge is the most visible symbol of Berlin’s revitalised Jewish community. The 1866 original was Germany's largest…
City West & Charlottenburg
Founded in 2000, C/O Berlin is the capital's most respected private, nonprofit exhibition centre for international photography and is based at the iconic…
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Kreuzberg
A roof-mounted ‘candy bomber’ (the plane used in the 1948 Berlin Airlift) is merely the overture to this enormous and hugely engaging shrine to technology…
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Schloss Charlottenburg – Altes Schloss
City West & Charlottenburg
Fronted by Andreas Schlüter’s equestrian statue of the Great Elector (1699), the baroque living quarters of Friedrich I and Sophie-Charlotte are an…
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König Galerie @ St Agnes Kirche
Kreuzberg
If art is your religion, a pilgrimage to this church-turned-gallery is a must. Tucked into a nondescript part of Kreuzberg, this decommissioned Catholic…
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Schöneberg
'Every object tells a story' could be the motto of this kooky collection of curiosities. Find madness nibbling at your psyche as you try to find the…
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Historic Mitte
High-calibre temporary exhibits, curated by the Deutsches Historisches Museum, occupy this spectacular contemporary annexe designed by Chinese-American…
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City West & Charlottenburg
The expansive park behind Schloss Charlottenburg is part formal French, part unruly English and all picturesque playground. Hidden among the shady paths,…
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Historic Mitte
Lorded over by the landmark Brandenburg Gate, this elegant square was completely flattened in WWII, then spent the Cold War trapped just east of the…
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche
City West & Charlottenburg
Allied bombing in 1943 left only the husk of the west tower of this once magnificent neo-Romanesque church standing. Now an antiwar memorial, it stands…
City West & Charlottenburg
A former Prussian officers' casino now showcases the artistic legacy of Helmut Newton (1920–2004), the Berlin-born enfant terrible of fashion and…
Friedrichshain
It’s easy to feel like Gulliver in the Land of Brobdingnag when walking down monumental Karl-Marx-Allee, one of Berlin's most impressive GDR-era relics…
