My gf and I have our birthdays within two days of each other so this past weekend, to celebrate, we decided to have a long weekend (aka. ‘city break’) in Berlin. Neither of us had been to Berlin before, and neither of us speak any German - so it was always going to be an adventure…
Arriving in Berlin via Stansted and Schonfeld, courtesy of Ryan Air, we settled in quickly to our accomodation at the Kadiner Loft in the Friedrichshain area of the city. The modern self-contained apartment is a great place from which to explore the sights: spacious, quiet, and within a five minute stroll of Frankfurter Tor U-Bahn station.
Our first day there was my birthday and after opening the cards I’d brought with me, I had full reign on where and when we would visit. In the event, it turned out to be quite a busy day as we variously U-Bahned and walked between Potsdamer Platz, The Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie, and The Topography of Terror. We returned to the apartment for a couple of hours break and to glug some cheap three euro wine refreshments…
In the evening, we travelled south into Eastern Kreuzberg and had a great night out watching live music and drinking half litres of lager in Wild At Heart. We left the club to a very heavy, windy rainstorm and contemplated hailing a cab before just getting our hoods up, our heads down, and heading to the U-Bahn five minutes up the road.
Most of Saturday was taken up by a visit to the immense Jewish Museum before walking back into Mitte down Orienburger Strasse and home for tea. In the evening we went to White Trash, fast Food (briefly) and stuffed ourselves with food before entering the weird and wonderful home of Russian Disko at Kaffee Burger. RussanDisko was heaving, and there were plenty of real ruskies in there too, topping up on wodka and getting on down to the distinctive Russian/Ska sounds. Unfortunately, we were way too full of beer and pizza at that point, and the queue for the cloakroom was too long for us to join them on the dancefloor - but if you’re ever in Berlin, go - you won’t regret it; as we left discovered that a strict one-in, one-out policy was being enforced on the queue that snaked up the street.
Sunday was for markets, and we spent the late morning browsing the flea market at Mauerpark followed by a predominantly cheese and cappucino based lunch and a gentle meander through Kollwitzplatz in the sunshine.
Photos here (if you’re friend/family, log in to see extra pictures) !
