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Home , East Side Gallery, Kunsthaus Tacheles, Schloss Charlottenburg

BERLIN in 5 DAYS

Contact Person: My-Linh [email protected]

BERLIN is known for: a) ROYALTY/ KAISER time b) WW II – Nazi, Jews c) EAST/WEST divide afterwards – Stasi, d) Cool artists’ town

DAY 1:

• • Holocaust Memorial (must do: go underground to the information center, get the audio guide and go through it). They are closed on Mondays. • (modern, restaurants) • Topographie of Terror • • Trabi Tour (tour of Berlin in little Trabi (an East German car)

DAY 2:

• Reichstag & Government Square • Victory Tower (Siesgessäule) • Walk by Bellevue (president’s residence) • Boat ride (one hour along the , catch near Bellevue) • Lunch at Patio restaurant (see below) • Gendarmemarkt (beautiful square – check out old time chocolate store on the corner) • Frederickstrasse (fancy shopping street, has Gallerie Lafayette) • KADEWE – Harrod’s like department store – go to the 6th & 7 th floor for food. • Then walk along Ku’Damn to see the old fancy shopping street.

DAY 3:

• Berliner Dom (cathedral) • (walk around to see the buildings) • Häckescherhöfe (fun shopping area)

• Walk down Oranienburger Strasse to, you’ll see the old Jewish Synagogue

• If you like photography, the C/O Berlin is at Oranienbergher Strasse 35/36 (huge building on corner, old post office) Keep walking … a bit further than the C/O • MUST visit the artists squad colony kunsthaus tacheles on this street (very grungy, very berlin, lots of )

DAY 4:

• – longest piece of surviving Berlin Wall – painted by different artists in 1990, then restored in 2010 http://www.eastsidegallery- berlin.de/ • Across from East Side Gallery is currently the exhibit Body Worlds – very interesting if you haven’t seen it somewhere else http://www.koerperwelten.com/de/berlin/english.html • Take a taxi from here to Bernauer Strasse 111 (Wall Museum) – they have videos of how life used to be with the wall, escapes, etc. and a wall memorial. • Spend the rest of the day around the Prenslauer Berg neighborhood, see the old jewish cemetery (Schönhauser Allee 22-25), visit the Kulturbrauerei (Schönhauser Allee 36-39) then walk around the shops and restaurants. This is cute neighborhood with lots of young families.

DAY 5: • Schloss ( of queen charlottenburg) • LUNCH at Brauhaus Lemke across the street • Museum Berggruen

OR • Take an S-Bahn from Frederickstrasse to and spend the day at Schloss SansSoucci (if you have a chance, this is a UNESCO world heritage site – beautiful palace).

MUSEUMS: If you are in the mood for museums, these are my favorites

Pergamon – old classics http://www.berlin.de/orte/museum/pergamonmuseum/index.en.php?lang=en If lines are long, go to the next door and buy the ticket for both museums (not much more expensive) then you can bypass the line. Noone is at the Bode.

Neues Museum – has Nefertiti (the beautiful Egyptian queen) http://www.neues- museum.de/ The building now provides a new home for the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection and the Museum of Prehistory and Early History , together with artefacts from the Collection of Classical Antiquities .

Gemälde Gallerie – Old Masters like Rembrandt, Breugel, Vermeer etc. http://www.smb.museum/smb/standorte/index.php?p=2&objID=35&n=5 Very quiet, modern building with lots of old masters paintings.

Museum Berggruen – small museum across from (Castle), lots of Picasso, and artists you’d know (private collection of a Berliner gallerist who used to live in Paris) http://www.smb.museum/smb/standorte/index.php?p=2&objID=2976&n=11

Helmut Newton Photography Museum (if you know his work, this is a good museum) http://www.helmut-newton.de/

For modern art – walk around the galleries in the side streets next to Oranienburg Strasse for go to Hamburger Bahnhof http://www.hamburgerbahnhof.de/text.php or Neue National Gallerie http://www.smb.museum/smb/sammlungen/details.php?lang=en&objID=20&n=1 &r=13&s=6

RESTAURANTS / BARS:

1. Käfers on top of the Reichstag (parliament building usually has long line, but make a reservation at the restaurant for the evening, and you get to be there in the copula after closing hours – very cool). Unfortunately, I just checked – it’s closed from 7/11 for a month. 2. LUNCH: Patio ( restaurant on a boat right near the President’s residence – has a nice business lunch) http://www.patio-berlin.de/ 3. BREAKFAST or LUNCH: Literatur Haus on Fasane Strasse 23 (beautiful little café) http://www.literaturhaus-berlin.de/ 4. Evening: Cookies Cream (very cool vegetarian restaurant – right in ) http://www.cookiescream.com/ (keep clicking on their website to get to the main page) 5. BAR: Newton Bar (on Gendarme Markt in Mitte) http://www.newton- bar.de/index_flash.html 6. Across from the Newton Bar is Lutter & Wegner (old time Berlin, typical German food, sit in the back where the wine bottles are) http://www.l-w- berlin.de/index_flash.html