City Lit: Kurfürstendamm
Suzi from Packabook.com throws away her guidebook to explore one of Berlin's most famous streets via two novels... One of the great joys of reading books set in the city you're visiting is the way they can help you understand your surroundings. I like to read novels as if they're maps - keys to places I've not yet unlocked. Some people like guide books...I'd rather read a novel. I think I'm right in saying that for most non-German speakers, the street names in Berlin can be a bit [...]
Kunst Werke Institute For Contemporary Arts
A jewel in Mitte's art scene crown... Berlin’s Auguststrasse isn’t short on galleries. This well known Mitte street is a main artery for contemporary art in the city, long ago earning the sobriquet “East Berlin's art mile” for its impressive wealth of independent galleries that line both sides of the street and show everything from sculpture and fine art to photography. Of all the street’s venues, the Kunst Werke Institute For Contemporary Arts at number 69 is perhaps the most [...]
The Berlin Stories
Little less than a century old, Christopher Isherwood’s classic book still sheds light on the city that’s its star… Aficionados of Slow Travel know that to get to the soul of a place you don’t necessarily have to explore its heart. Tourists gathering around London’s Trafalgar Square or Rome’s Trevi Fountain may feel that they have come face to face with a city’s history, but these are landmarks, nothing more, ignored by locals to whom they represent little. The soul of a [...]
Paul & Paula
A friendly and colourful kindercafe near the Volkspark Friedrichshain... Located on a quiet leafy back street between the extensive Volkspark Friedrichshain and the grandiloquent Karl-Marx-Allee, Paul & Paula is one of the longer serving veterans of Berlin’s kindercafe scene. Named after the East German movie classic Die Legende von Paul und Paula, which was filmed partly in Friedrichshain in 1973, i t’s been providing delightful refuge for mums and dads and their kids for [...]
Oye Como Va
Dave Tinning profiles one of Prenzlauer Berg’s premier vinyl outlets…. Oye Records, nestled in a basement just off Prenzlauer Berg’s main drag Kastanienallee, has carved a unique little niche for itself in the capital. Originally catering for collectors of Latin, soul and funk records, Oye has since diversified to cover an impressive range of styles, from afrobeat to blip-hop to UK funky, and on to those Berlin club staples - house and techno. Record stores are not always known [...]
Canoeing in Gosen
William Thirteen paddles in the watery footsteps of Frederick the Great... In 1752 Prussian ruler Frederick the Great took time out between war with Silesia and witty banter with his friend Voltaire to found the small village of Gosen. Gosen and neighboring village Neu Zittau were intended to be home to the workers of the new weaving and spinning mills being established in the area as part of Frederick's efforts to develop the local Brandenburg economy. In the intervening two and a half [...]
Fête de la Musique
Paul Sullivan chats to the local organisers of the famous Fête de la Musique event... On June 21st, Berliners will once again celebrate the longest day of the year and the official beginning of summer with a city-wide music festival, the Fete de la Musique. With performances on over 80 open-air stages, the street festival offers everything from reggae and jazz, to hip hop, electronic music and klezmer. Some of the city's larger venues, like the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the [...]
Teufelsberg: Berlin’s North Face
A personal walking excursion to one of Berlin's most mysterious landmarks... Considering it’s a city with lots of neighbourhoods named after hills (Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg, Schöneberg and so on), Berlin is a challengingly flat place. You can walk for miles and miles without rising so much as an inch above the median above-sea-level altitude. Nor would the more notable inclines in the city’s topography – the gradual north-easterly rise along Prenzlauer Allee, for instance - trouble an [...]
Solid Gold
Where music meets couture... There’s been a well-documented sea change in the way that musicians make their money over the last few years. Antelope-hide briefcases stuffed full of cash and handed over by record companies in return for another collection of generic dross are out (except for the lucky few). Instead, sweaty musicians are climbing off the stage and heading straight to the back of the venue to hawk merchandise to eager fans in order to pay their hotel bills. It’s an [...]
Strandbad Wannsee
Berlin's oldest and most famous lido still packs in the punters... You're in Berlin. The sun has got his hat (and rave shades) on and you suddenly find yourself longing to escape the city - to flee the concrete, traffic and shadows for some sand, sea and fresh air. The East (Baltic) sea is at least three hours away: too far for a day trip, especially since you're not an early riser. But wait. What's that large mass of water south-west of the city, en route to Potsdam? Of course -- it's [...]
