Berlin: A City That Still Hasn’t Finished Happening

The Pergamon Museum’s main hall has been closed since 2023 and will remain so until at least 2027, which means you cannot see the Pergamon Altar or the Ishtar Gate on their current stands. The Neues Museum is open with the bust of Nefertiti; the Altes Museum, Bode Museum, and Alte Nationalgalerie are all operating. This is worth knowing before you build a Museum Island day around the Pergamon, only to find construction barriers where the Gate of Babylon should be.

Berlin has been shaped, destroyed, divided, and reinvented within living memory, and the city’s density of historical layers is genuinely unusual among European capitals. The Wall came down in 1989. The government moved from Bonn in 1999. The Humboldt Forum, a reconstructed Hohenzollern palace that was itself demolished in 1950 and rebuilt as a modern cultural complex, opened in 2021. The city is still mid-process in a way that Paris or London is not, and that incompleteness is part of what makes it interesting.

What to See

The Brandenburg Gate was built in 1791 as a neoclassical triumphal arch and subsequently witnessed Napoleon’s entry into Berlin, two world wars, and the Cold War division of the city. It stands at the western end of Unter den Linden and is accessible at all hours for free. At night, without the daytime crowds, it reads differently: a monument that has survived considerably more than it was designed for.

The Reichstag dome requires advance booking online; you cannot walk in. Pre-registration through the Bundestag website is free and takes about five minutes; without it you cannot enter. The glass dome, designed by Norman Foster and completed in 1999, offers panoramic views over the government district and operates on a spiral ramp system that takes you to the summit. It is open until midnight and the evening visit, with the city lit below, is better than the daytime one.

Museum Island is a UNESCO World Heritage peninsula in the Spree containing five major museums. With the Pergamon’s main hall closed, prioritise the Neues Museum for the Nefertiti bust and the Egyptian collections, and the Alte Nationalgalerie for 19th-century German and European painting including Caspar David Friedrich. A day pass covering all open Island museums runs around €24.

The Holocaust Memorial (officially the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), 200 metres south of the Brandenburg Gate, is 2,711 concrete stelae in a grid of unequal heights. Walking through it produces a specific spatial disorientation: the ground is uneven, the stelae grow taller, the paths narrow. The underground Information Centre provides biographical context that the stelae themselves deliberately withhold. Allow at least 90 minutes for both.

East Side Gallery on Mühlenstrasse is 1.3 km of original Berlin Wall painted by international artists in 1990. The murals are in varying states of preservation; the most famous, Dmitri Vrubel’s painting of Brezhnev and Honecker kissing, has been restored multiple times. The setting on the riverbank, with the Oberbaum Bridge at one end and the Spree flowing past, is better than any framed reproduction conveys.

Kreuzberg and Neukölln are the neighbourhoods that most accurately represent what contemporary Berlin actually is: dense, diverse, cheap by European standards, with independent coffee shops, Turkish bakeries, and the kind of bar that has been running on low margins and strong character for twenty years. The area around Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzberg is the most concentrated version; the Weserstrasse area in Neukölln is slightly less saturated with visitors.

Food

Currywurst at Curry 36 on Mehringdamm is the honest Berlin fast food experience: pork sausage, curry ketchup, fries. The queue is part of the ritual.

Konnopke’s Imbiss under the elevated U-Bahn tracks in Prenzlauer Berg has served currywurst since 1930 and is the older, slightly more atmospheric alternative to the more central options.

Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebap on Mehringdamm has queues that extend around the block for a stuffed flatbread with roasted vegetables, herb sauces, and feta. The queue is not exaggerated; arrive early or go at an odd hour. Whether a vegetable kebab justifies 45 minutes is an argument Berlin regulars have been having for years.

For an actual sit-down meal: Restaurant Tim Raue in Kreuzberg holds two Michelin stars and specialises in Asian-influenced modern German cooking. Prenzlauer Berg’s Konnopke aside, the residential neighbourhoods around Helmholtzplatz and Kollwitzkiez have a dense concentration of neighbourhood restaurants that cost a fraction of the same quality in London or Paris.

Staying

Hotel Zoo near Kurfürstendamm is the mid-to-high option with good access to the western city. East Seven Berlin Hostel, close to Museum Island and Alexanderplatz, is a reliable budget choice. For mid-range stays, the Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte districts offer design-led boutique options at prices that reflect Berlin’s relative affordability.

Practical Notes

The U-Bahn and S-Bahn are efficient. Buy a day ticket rather than single fares if you are moving around. Card payments are less universally accepted in Berlin than in comparable European cities; carry some cash, particularly for markets, smaller cafes, and the kinds of establishments that have been deliberately cash-only since the 1990s.

The Tegel airport closed in 2021; all Berlin flights now use Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), about 30 minutes from the city centre by S-Bahn or Flixbus.