One day walking through Berlin
What to do when you only have one day to spend in Berlin? My best advice is to just take a map, your best walking shoes, and your camera and just go explore because Berlin is an amazing city, with breathtaking architecture that intersects perfectly between the old remaining architecture after the second world war and the new futuristic one that comes to life after the war. Today, Berlin have become a cultural and intellectual hub in Europe with a lot of museums and memorials that developed the city into a hot spot for visitors who want to soak up history and learn from the past, but also enjoy a modern city.
And, when you only have 1 day in a city, my best advice is to forget the museums because you will lose a lot of time in them and just walk, see the people and feel the town's energy. Don’t get me wrong, I also love going into museums and soak in as much as I can about art, history, technology; but, for all of this you need more than 1 day to explore all the museums and art expositions that Berlin has to offer.
We have arrived in the city on a cloudy Saturday with a lot of chance for rain, but as I always tell my husband: “I bring the sun with me wherever I go”; so we were lucky and it didn’t rain, the sun even made an appearance a couple of times and we could walk all over the city center and explore every little corner.
Hope you will enjoy as much as we did, the one-day itinerary for Berlin that I will share with you below.
Top Things to do in Berlin:
1) Brandenburg Gate: Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburg Tor in German) offers an introduction to Berlin’s history . Originally built as a sign of peace in the 1700s, Brandenburg Gate eventually came to signify the division of East Berlin and West Berlin divide .Walking through the Brandenburg Gate is such a powerful experience, that reminds us that we are doing it so freely, as it was just a few decades ago that such an action couldn’t take place.
2) The Berlin Wall : You can’t go to Berlin and not spend some time where the Berlin Wall once stood. No visit to Berlin is complete without seeing the Berlin wall, the symbol of a divided nation. When you arrive at the wall, you can feel how the memory of this place comes app on you and what it meant for an entire nation.
3) Berlin Dom - The Berliner Dom (or Berlin Cathedral) is a magnificent domed cathedral in Berlin that dates back to 1415. Visitors to Berlin can tour the cathedral as well as visit the Cathedral Museum. The Cathedral Museum displays information on the history of Berliner Dom as well as the original architectural designs for the cathedral. You can go to the top of Berliner Dom for a beautiful view of Berlin, but, for this you’ll need to climb 267 steps to get there.
4) Museum Island : It’s actually an island on witch you can find five museums , in the Mitte district. Built between 1824 and 1930, it became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1999.
5) Holocaust Memorial - The Holocaust Memorial was built to remember Jewish people who were killed in the Holocaust. It was designed by Peter Eisenman, on an area of approximately 19.000 square meters, 2,711”stelae” concrete slabs that vary in height and you can walk through them. After a stroll between "stelae" you feel overwhelmed by the place and the significance of this monument and for a moment you understand a hardship of the suffering that these people have experienced.
6) Alexanderplatz : is a public city square and the main landmark here is the towering Fernsehturm (TV tower). Known as the ‘toothpick’, the TV tower measures 365m to the top of the spire. The sphere contains a revolving restaurant called the Telecafe at 207m.
7) Fernsehturm : The Fernsehturm is a television tower in central Berlin, Germany. Close to Alexanderplatz in Berlin-Mitte, the tower was constructed between 1965 and 1969 by the government of the German Democratic Republic.
8) The Rechstag building : One short walk from the Brandenburg Gate, you can find the Reichstag building, the house of the German parliament. This modern and old building was built in 1894, but was destroyed by fire in 1933 It was partially restored in the 60s, but completely renewed in 1990. Today the glass dome on top allows for citizens to see their parliament in action and also a beautiful view with a gourmet restaurant : link restaurant
9) Bode Museum: The Bode Museum is one of the group of museums on the Museum Island in Berlin, Germany. It was designed by architect Ernst von Ihne and completed in 1904. We didn’t have time to enter, but we have enjoined the amazing architecture from outside.
10) Checkpoint Charlie : Our tour couldn’t be complete without a visit to the Checkpoint Charlie. This is one of the most iconic places in town and you can visit the museum until 10 pm. Checkpoint Charlie was the most used crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War and it became its symbol. The original site was dismantled after the fall of the Berlin Wall later turning into a tourist attraction.
Where to Sleep in Berlin :
We’ve staid at the Relexa Hotel near the …. because we had to be at a conference on Sunday evening at it was very convenient for us to be at a 5 min walk from the place. The …. hotel is a lovely hotel , with nice staff, a parking place where you can leave your car.If you are in Berlin for only 1 day, I would definitively recommend to stay in the center (Mitte), as you don’t have a lot of time to visit the city. So, staying near the main attractions is the most important thing. It would be a little more expensive, but it will definitively worth the money.
Where to Eat in Berlin :
We found some interesting little places to eat in Berlin, you can search them on Trip Advisor - link , or just enter in one that you like on the street.This are the ones that we’ve tried and enjoyed :
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