Twenty years after the fall of its infamous wall, Berlin is the epitome of cool. Thomas Breathnach picks some of the best summer attractions.
Irish Independent
With my Four Seasons lifestyle curtailed by the credit crunch, I book into a downtown hostel to see how the other half lives. We land at the surprisingly small Schoenefeld airport, a 30-minute Strassenbahn ride into Alexanderplatz followed by a short walk to my budget bed at Wombats, located on a busy downtown intersection.
Modernist Berliner funk was clearly the design brief here and the lobby more resembles a boutique hotel than a backpacker hangout. The open-plan space is a contrast of avocado walls and chilli red furniture and a cluster of low hanging light fixtures emit an ambient glow. A lounge area with several cubic sofas and pop art maps provides sanctuary for some chilled-out guests who are soaking up Wi-Fi on their laptops.
As I walk to reception, I notice another kooky detail — the plants that line the lobby have all been given personal names, which feature on their pots. How novel!
I’m welcomed by native Rebecca, whose style is punk and manner sincere. “It’s a big year for Berlin you know,” she tells me. And if you visit the city this year, you can’t help feeling that 1989 really was a year that changed the world.
“Most of the wall’s on eBay now,” Rebecca continues as she marks on my map where I can find its three remaining sections. Check-in complete, I grab the lift to my room brushing past an aloe vera named Dieter in the process.
The dorm I’m sharing with friends has three pine bunks in a spacious room of dark wood flooring and bright walls. It’s a fresh and airy affair. Large window panels open fully allowing me to take full advantage of the view: the city skyline dramatically bisected by western Europe’s tallest structure, the Berliner Fernsehturm. Once settled and showered, the city is my oyster.
Berlin’s public transport medley of subways, trams and buses are excellent value and very efficient. Other fun ways of discovering the city are by tandem rental or hiring out a Traband (car) for a few hours. But seeing as Berlin is also as flat as the proverbial pfannkuche, walking is the most attractive option.
A few blocks down the road, the looming Fernsehturm seems the obvious first leg of my tourist trail. This space-age style tower, which is located in East Berlin, was actually constructed by the Soviet government as a symbol of communist power. It seems to do the trick.
An exhibition featuring messages of love cover the concrete spire and soften its imperious presence. It’s a €10 ticket for the 40-second lift ride to the 300m-high orb, which offers the finest views of this expansive city and gives us an idea of where we’re off to next.
Walking west in the direction of Brandenburg, we cross the city’s main waterway, the River Spree. Barges of tourists basking in 25 degree heat and sipping wine are ferried up and down the river, taking in the fine neo-renaissance architecture of Berlin Cathedral.
The city is home to almost four million people, but being a Sunday, there’s only a dozen or so of them about today. The wide lengthy avenues are almost silent but for the sounds of a few pedal pushers, or the smacks of volleyball being played by sun-kissed Olympic hopefuls in one of the city’s many green spaces.
As we reach the Brandenburg Gate, I have to admit it looks a little small in real life but is impressive all the same with the line of Linden trees that margin each side of the avenue. After a token snap or two, the Gate is quickly overshadowed as the heads of the masses turn to a troupe of street capoeira performers. It seems a monument that symbolises a united Berlin can’t compete against a bunch of shirtless Brazilians who hurtle their bodies mid-air like human helicopters.
Next on the check-list is Checkpoint Charlie, the best-known crossing point between former East and West Berlin. Any expectation I had that this symbol of the Cold War would provide a haunting throwback to a divided city are dashed once I round the corner. In reality, it’s more a case of an autobahn toll booth meets Disneyland Paris. Two female actors, who’ve possibly escaped from the stage of The Producers, are dressed as glammed-up police officers and guard the checkpoint wielding huge Soviet and American flags. They pose for photographs with a string of American frat boys, trousering €1 off each of them per snap. We don’t stick around to be touted.
The Berlin Wall Documentation Centre and Memorial located on Bernauer Str, a couple of U-Bahn stops away, is a far more sobering experience. This small museum, free to the public, depicts the lives of those living in pre-unification Berlin through photography, newsreels and authentic artefacts. Audiovisual displays of East Germans trying to flee the GDR make for gut-wrenching viewing and gasps echo throughout the otherwise silent museum as some of the barbaric scenes are witnessed.
The museum itself sits adjacent to a strip of existing wall and its roof terrace offers great views of the French and Soviet sectors of old Berlin. The wall, like many of the city’s cold and systematic communist era buildings, is splashed with graffiti — an example of how the Berlin street culture movement is reclaiming its city through art.
Berlin itself comes across as a bit of a blank canvas once you’re off the tourist trail. It’s not as in your face as other European capitals and it’s worthwhile doing a little groundwork, particularly when checking out the city’s nightlife, which can be quite underground.
Some friendly locals recommend that the trendy Kreuzberg district would act as the perfect chaser to a day of sightseeing. And so there, in a lesbian bar called Roses, with our ludicrously cheap round of drinks, we toasted our first trip to Berlin and its 20 years of reunification.
But we’d only really scratched the surface; it would be nice to come back next year to get beneath it.
– Thomas Breathnach
Five Great Things To Do.
- Celebrate 20 years of Berlin liberation at Mauerfall, a series of events and exhibitions taking place across the city. The event finishes on November 9, when 1,000 giant foam dominoes will be erected along the route of the wall, then toppled (www.mauerfall09.de; free).
- Discover animal magic at Berlin Tierpark, the Noah’s Ark of zoos. It offers the world’s largest range of animal species in captivity, including Knut — the polar bear cub who was raised by zookeepers after being rejected by his mother. (www.zoo-berlin.de; adults €12, children €6).
- Tune into the annual open-air Berlin Festival, August 7-8 at Tempelhof airport. It coincides with the city’s international beer festival (August 7-9). Pete Dohertyand José Gonzalez are among the acts (www.berlinfestival.com; tickets from €32).
- Stay up for the Long Night of Museums on August 29, when Berlin’s museums keep their doors open all night. You can also catch it on the last Saturday of January. (www. lange-nacht-der-museen.de; from €8).
- Take your tricolour to the World Athletic Championships in the German capital from August 15-23 to cheer on the Irish team. (www.berlin2009.org; €8).
Getting There
Aer Lingus (0818 365 000; aerlingus.com) flies from Dublinand Cork to Berlin Schonefeld. Ryanair (0818 303 030; ryanair.com) flies from Dublin.
Staying there
Wombat’s City Hostel (Alteschoenhausser Str. 2; 0049 3084 710820; www. wombats-hostels.com) has dorms from €17, doubles €58, double room apartment €80. Apartments can sleep one child and they are spacious with ample space to play. No age restrictions. Guests can wind down with a complimentary drink on arrival. The Louisiana Kid restaurant serves breakfast for €3.50 and Cajun food with excellent steaks from €9.50.