The 3.5km Kurfürstendamm is a ribbon of commerce that began as a bridle path to the royal hunting lodge in the Grunewald forest. In the early 1870s, Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, decided that the capital of the newly founded German Reich needed its own representative boulevard, which he envisioned as even bigger and better than Paris' Champs-Élysées. Today it is Berlin's busiest shopping strip, especially towards its eastern end.
Kurfürstendamm
City West & Charlottenburg
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
3.11 MILES
Walk through ancient Babylon, meet an Egyptian queen, clamber up a Greek altar or be mesmerized by Monet's ethereal landscapes. Welcome to Museumsinsel …
3.1 MILES
For over 60 years, not a soul was able to visit Berlin’s Neues Museum – in fact, it sat in ruins. But today it’s one of the city’s most celebrated…
3.1 MILES
The Pergamonmuseum is one of Berlin’s most visited historical gems and perhaps also its most controversial. This museum offers an archaeological time-warp…
2.3 MILES
This compelling exhibit tells stories of terror and persecution in Nazi Germany.
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14.38 MILES
This glorious park and palace ensemble is what happens when a king has good taste, plenty of cash and access to the finest architects and artists of the…
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14.08 MILES
Frederick the Great's famous summer palace, this rococo gem was designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff in 1747 and sits daintily above vine-draped…
Nearby City West & Charlottenburg attractions
0.17 MILES
Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was a famous early-20th-century artist whose social and political awareness lent a tortured power to her lithographs, graphics,…
0.24 MILES
The Amerika Haus was a United States–sponsored cultural and information centre with a library, cinema and exhibition spaces. Designed by Bruno Grimmek, it…
0.24 MILES
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…
4. Mahnmal am Breitscheidplatz
0.25 MILES
This simple memorial honours the victims of the terror attack of 19 December 2016, when an Islamist asylum seeker drove into a crowd at the Christmas…
5. Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche
0.28 MILES
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…
0.31 MILES
Everyone from foot-sore tourists to buskers and skateboarding teens gathers around the quirky Weltbrunnen, a 1983 creation of local artist Joachim…
0.31 MILES
This engaging museum breaks 800 years of Berlin history into bite-size chunks that are easy to swallow but substantial enough to be satisfying. Each room…
0.32 MILES
A former Prussian officers' casino now showcases the artistic legacy of Helmut Newton (1920–2004), the Berlin-born enfant terrible of fashion and…