‘Off The Beaten Track’ Archives
Onkel Toms Hütte
Natalie Holmes unearths the intriguing story behind Zehlendorf's most singular housing estate... Imagine this: in 1925, 70,000 Berliners lived in basements and about 600,000 people inhabited rooms shared with three others. Many apartments had little or no heating and the lack of running water made for appalling sanitary conditions. In winter the apartments were damp and icy. In summer they were unbearably hot. Times were tough, so in order to survive, women and children frequently [...]
Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin: A Walking Tour
“For Christopher, Berlin meant boys,” goes a memorable line in Christopher Isherwood’s memoir. It is the starting point for Brendan Nash’s walking tour of the area around Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg, one of Berlin’s oldest gay neighborhoods. Isherwood, whose portrayal of Berlin between the late 1920s and early 1930s gave us the images many of us still associate with this period, lived here during his third visit to the city. While still a student in Cambridge, Isherwood and [...]
Winter in Berlin [Photo Gallery]
![Winter in Berlin [Photo Gallery]](http://www.slowtravelberlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/wm_039-300x200.jpg "Winter in Berlin [Photo Gallery]")
We asked our readers for their best photos of Berlin in winter. Here are our picks of their pics...
In Prenzlauer Berg
Philosopher Justin E. H. Smith takes a stroll around Prenzlauer Berg and ruminates on its (mostly hidden) past... Among the grimmer thoughts one has to contend with on any visit to Berlin is this: that one could very well be staying not only in the logistical nerve center of the Final Solution, but in the very building, and perhaps in the very same room, in which a Holocaust victim once lived. This possibility rose to 50%, in fact, when I was in Berlin a few days ago, and stayed in a [...]
In Photos: Treptow Crematorium
All photos by Christoph Boecken. Captions and additional text by Paul Sullivan. Treptow Crematorium Kiefholzstr. 221, 12437 Berlin T 030 63958121 Open M-F 9-15
GDR Museumswohnung
Grashina Gabelmann visits an East German home that's been preserved as a museum... Whether it’s through movies such as Goodbye Lenin, books like Anna Funder’s Stasiland, Berlin institutions like the Stasi Museum or Hohenschoenhausen, or one of the city’s many themed walking tours, you’ll probably know something about the GDR (German Democratic Republic). But unless you’re one of the rare people who actually lived in East Germany between 1949-1990, you probably won’t know [...]
Hidden Path [Street Art Tour]
![Hidden Path [Street Art Tour]](http://www.slowtravelberlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PICT0300_neu-300x199.jpg "Hidden Path [Street Art Tour]")
Grashina Gabelmann takes an alternative street art tour through Berlin's Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain... There are lots of tours on offer in Berlin that describe themselves as alternative and promise to take you on the “path less trodden” -- but something about The Hidden Path's beautiful website, with its hand drawn elements, made its declaration seem more authentic. The starting point of the tour was in front of 'Casino 36', a grimy and dodgy looking building covered in graffiti [...]
Givebox
Dougal Squires talks to the founder of Givebox in Berlin, a simple yet wonderful concept based on the idea of "caring and sharing"... Andy is a friendly, confident man, and particularly enthusiastic about the Givebox that he has founded here in Berlin. He wants to remain anonymous - hence the lack of surname - which poses a problem for me, as he was to be the central part of my interview. But what has gone relatively unreported through the numerous articles about the Givebox over the [...]
Hidden Europe’s Guide to Lichterfelde
Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries, editors of the excellent Berlin-based Hidden Europe magazine, profile their much-neglected suburb... Prosaic places are so often the most interesting spots. And the Berlin suburb of Lichterfelde ranks as decidedly prosaic. None of the main English-language guidebooks to Berlin so much as mentions the suburb where we live and work. Tourists do not flock to Lichterfelde to see the great sights of a community that, fifty years ago this summer, awoke on a [...]
With New Eyes – A Berlin Audio Tour
For one month only (October 2011), Berliners have the chance to experience the city as blind or visually impaired people do - sonically. What does it mean to travel through a city while listening to the different sounds and noises a city creates? And what sound and noises make up a place like Berlin compared to other cities? Going through a city in this way opens up your ears again. You will experience the city in a different way during and after the tour for two reasons: on one hand you'll [...]
