What are the must sees in Berlin?

Question

Hi, I'll be going to Berlin on saturday from kiel and i was wondering what the best things to see. I will only be there for 7 hours and i am looking for stuff that is free! Any help is appreciated!!!

Answer 1

Visit some spectacular places such as, 1.  Schloss und Park Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg Palace and Park), 2.  Neuer Garten & Schloss Cecilienhof (New Garden & Cecilienhof Palace, 3. Berlin Wall, 4. Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, 5. Alexanderplatz. 6. Gendarmenmarkt.

Enough for your 7 hours.

For other additional travel information, see if this website can help you.

http://www.fibcool.com/cheap-flights/

Answer 2

These are free

Kaiser Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche - near Bahnhof Zoo - bombed out during World War II, left in this bombed out fashion, new church built  next door.  You can still see wonderful mosaics of Hohenzollern family.

Brandenburg Gate - U Bahn Unter den Linden exit.  - This is THE Symbol of Berlin, and can be the great start to a walk down Unter den Linden to Museumsinsel, then on to Alexanderplatz.

The Reichstag - walk by it, don't go in, as the lines are impossibly long to walk in the dome.  You can walk here from the Brandenburg Gate

The Memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.  Just a couple of blocks south of the Brandenburg Gate, this is a moving memorial to walk through.  There is a visitor's center, again lines were always long and slow.

The site of Hitler's Bunker - a bit south of the Holocaust memorial, there is now a sign on the street where it is.  Two years ago it was not.  Of course it has been filled in and sealed, but the movie "die Untergang" opened up legitimate interest in it, and the city has responded by acknowledging it. It's on Vossstrasse

The Topography of Terrors exhibit - this traces the actions of the SS and Gestapo, and is located on Wilhelmstrasse where the headquarters used to be.  Closest S-Bahn is Anhalter Bahnhof, but Kochstrasse is also nearby. The exhibit is moving but time consuming, with little time, try to just do a part of it.  It is chilling, though.  Next to it is a piece of the wall, but I recommend

The Berlin Wall Memorial - This exhibit, tower and documentation center is on Bernauerstrasse, near Bernauerstrasse U Bahn, or Nordbahnhof on the S-Bahn.  They have a huge documentation center, about the building of the wall, a piece of the wall (full section, including the forbidden zone, and both walls) and other information.  If you are wondering about the Church of the Reconciliation - it's the home of this documentation center, although the center is not all religous.  The wall separated the bulk of the congregation from the church building, which abutted the wall and sat in the forbidden zone until 1985 when it was demolished - only 4 years before the wall fell.

Marx-Engles Forum - a socialist monument to the founders of communism, left over from the East Germany days, well worth doing, just near Alexanderplatz.

Checkpoint Charlie - the museum costs money, but seeing the checkpoint itself (in the middle of the street) is free.  Kochstrasse U Bahn.

The East Side Galley - a kilometer long bit of the wall, art intact, near the Ostbahnhof.  You can just walk down it.

Not free, but worth the money.

For 2.10 you can take the Bus #100 from Bahnhof Zoo to Alexanderplatz, this goes by many big Berlin sites.  Bus #200 does also, but instead of going through the tiergarten, and past the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, it goes to Potsdammer Platz.  The best ride is 100 Zoo to Alex then 200 Alex to Zoo.

Hope this helps

P.S. I disagree with the previous poster - The Schlosser he suggests are great, and definitely must do's in many Berlin itineraries, but they take a long time to get to and cost money.  The Neuer Garten and Cecilienhof are in Potsdam, which is a 35 minute to 1 hour ride, depending on whether you take DB (fast) or S-Bahn (slow).  Then you walk a long time and pay money to see the schloss, which actually isn't in Berlin. Charlottenburg is more reasonable, but still a good half hour to get there and back, not in the center of Berlin. And they cost 12 Euro!  (although one ticket may cover both.) For 7 hours and an emphasis on free I'd save them for a later visit.

Answer 3

Take the S1 to Anhalter Bahnhof and have a walk through Kochstraße and continue to Oranienstraße, until you end up at Schlesisches Tor (U1), then turn right direction Treptow, stop at the big McDonald's there, turn left direction S-Bahn Treptower Park, and use the swift line back to Bahnhof Zoo to go back to Kiel.

What you'll see on the way:

Kochstraße is the place to go when you want to see Checkpoint Charlie. As a matter of fact, Friedrichstraße is crossing Kochstraße, and at the corner, there is a "Checkpoint Charlie museum". Visit it when you have more time.

Walking on the Kochstraße, you'll see the famous Springer Verlag building on your left, the BILD-Zeitung and the controversies about it having been the supposed reason for the 1968 students' movement ("Studentenbewegung") in Germany, ending up with one student (Benno Ohnesorg) being shot dead, and the idol of the movement, Rudi Dutschke, severely wounded. This also gave rise to the R.A.F. (red army faction) in the 1970ies.

Continuing into Oranienstraße, you'll see Berlin brick buildings from, actually, before the war, and you'll move into a thriving community where Turks and German live side by side, and you'll experience "little Istanbul". When you walk along it, it's probably hard to imagine that there were the bad-renowned 1st of May riots in former years; nowadays, on 1st of May, there are more police than protestors.

When you end up at Schlesisches Tor, turn right to Treptow. You will have to walk a kilometer or so without seeing anything, but look to the right: They kept a watchtower from the former army of the GDR. It is kept as a national monument. Stop there for a second once you see it and think: "h**l, in former times, they'd have me shot.", then continue walking on to the McDonald's at the end of that road. You'll have deserved it by then.

I never counted my steps along that way, but I suppose it may be 8 or 10 km or so. Easy to do on a lazy afternoon, with some snacks and talk in between.

(P.S.: There is also a U-Bahn that goes directly to Kochstraße; maybe that's more fit for you lazybones. I can't remember the number, however. Think it was something like U8, but I wouldn't swear into that.)