Of course you do! And to be honest, claiming to have invented a sausage served with ketchup and curry powder is almost like claiming to have invented toasting sliced bread. Let’s split the honours salomonically and claim that you invented the Currywurst mit Darm and Berliners invented the Currywurst ohne Darm (with and without casing). Or the other way around, if you prefer.
Though I’m Westphalian, I really have no dog (hah!) in this fight, I ate my last Currywurst 30 years ago and have been a vegetarian since.
I can get a free admission there. In Manchester, NH, there’s a statue of Ralph Baer, who invented the first home video game, among other things. Next to it is a sign explaining Baer’s history, and it says the Computerspielemuseum will give free admission to anyone who takes a selfie with Baer. I’ve always kinda wondered how many people take them up on that.
When I was in Berlin, I couldn’t get enough of those half bread rolls with raw minced pork. There was also a dish that consisted of two baseball sized meatballs and three similarly sized balls of mashed potatoes all covered in gravy. I don’t know what it was called or what the meat was. I don’t think it was Pork Bouletten which are smaller, I think.
A word of warning - Berlin is the only place I’ve been where I felt intimidated by the architecture. It’s pretty brutal at times.
Two things I’m surprised nobody has mentioned. Sachsenhausen is a museum of sorts - actually a preserved concentration camp. IIRC it’s more-or-less in the middle of a housing estate in the suburbs, so reasonably easy to get to, but you could easily burn half a day on that trip. The other thing is the Wall. Again, IIRC the largest remaining section - a few hundred meters - is near the station where you catch the train for the airport - help me out, locals?
That good, huh? Actually, I’m pretty sure we had them when we visited. It’s worth doing - once.
j
ETA: and nobody has mentioned the Fernsehturm (TV Tower). You can go up it, which is cool, but I guess you would have to pre-book.
Königsberger Klopse?
With raw onions? Must have been Mettbrötchen.
Is there still a museum dedicated to the history of the city on the Kurfürstendamm? It’s kind of in the middle of a huge block mall. In the basement is a huge Cold War fallout shelter. Even though it doesn’t date back to WWII, the guides shut off all the lights and pipe in the sounds of a Berlin air raid to let you get a taste of the terror Berliners went through during the war.
Thanks for putting names to those dishes.
That’s been closed for many years since that mall was torn down. There are still WW2 bunkers you can visit, though.
It’s a bit touristy for my taste, and the paintings were never on the East side when the wall stood, but it is OK. They call it the East Side Gallery
Calling it the longest gallery in the world is tipical Berlin BS.
It is not so close, more like two hours by train acording to Google maps. Worth a visit? Yes. When you only got 36 hours? Perhaps not.
By an odd coincidence @kayaker mentioned this in the foods you would always order thread a couple of days ago. Never heard of it in 6 decades and change, and then twice in a week.
j
In my mind it’s only half an hour or so - strange. Yeah, even without that long a journey it would be a long visit. Maybe next time.
j
Now that’s a classic case of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon:
Very cool!
If you’re interested in history and what life was like under communism…do two things:
1.Visit the museum of daily life for East Berliners.
to see what the standard of living under communism was like up till 1990
(reservations have to be made in advance…it gets crowded)
2.Drive a commie car!.
The Trabant was the only car sold in East Germany, and for me, is an iconic symbol of the failure of the country. The car was designed in in the 1940’s , using existing technology of the 1930’s… And it remained totally unchanged and unimproved for half a century.
It is basically a riding lawnmower (with a roof)… but was the best that East Germany could offer its citizens.
You can drive one (usually in a group of 3 or 4 cars), led by a tour guide driving in the front car, talking to you the whole time through a speaker. You get to experience what life was like for a family in East Germany, riding in a car that shakes, vibrates, is very noisy, leaks a stream of exhaust into the front seat, has a cardboard interior and a top speed of 50 km/hour (30mph) .
(the Trabant tour is next to Checkpoint Charlie, the museum is not far away.)
Yes, the museums in Berlin are spectacular. Either of the ones mentioned has the bust of Nefertiti – worth the entire trip.
Potsdam is a good suggestion, too. But for only one day, restrict yourself to one palace. It may seem obvious to point this out, but those places are HUGE. And if walking between them, they are at quite a distance from each other. (Don’t forget, you’ve got to walk back too!) Maybe stick to Sanssouci Palace. In fact, make this your number one principle – strategise.
Berliner cuisine is pretty meaty, from memory, but tasty. Don’t miss a currywurst – widely available. As the previous poster notes, Turkish places are widespread as well. (Hope you’re not a vegetarian!) Potato salad is good too; you will find potatoes done 500 ways. German bread is excellent too – especially the rye (not for caraway seed haters). Ditto the pickles. I actually really liked the food in Berlin! It is very multicultural.
The transport system is very efficient. BUT U-Bahn and S-Bahn train lines are distinguished by colour. Some of these colours look very similar when you are peering at maps lit by fluorescent lights. And there is usually NO-ONE around whose job it is to help you. If all else fails, remember “Entschuldigung bitte!”(excuse me).
If you are a classical music lover, go and hear any of Berlin’s top three orchestras. The Philharmonic was on tour when we were there, but we heard the Konzerthaus Orchestra – just marvellous. We were there literally in five minutes via the U-Bahn.
Apologies for what I have gotten wrong.
The journey takes nowhere near that long. The train journey is only about 30 minutes and couldn’t be easier, as it’s the last station on that S-Bahn line. Oranienburg is a commuter suburb of Berlin. Then, if you don’t take the bus, it’s an easy 30 minutes walk. The route is well-signposted and there will probably be lots of other tourists heading the same way. I thought the Schloss was also worth visiting and yet was literally the only visitor.
But some of the best things to see in Berlin - Oranienburg, Potsdam, Charlottenburg - aren’t really the most sensible options for the first-time visitor with only a day. Stick to stuff in the centre. For my first visit, I had only a morning and half an afternoon. A long wander including the Reichstag, the Unter den Linden, Museum Island, the Alexander Platz, and then doubling back to the Wilhelmstrasse and the Potsdamer Platz was the perfect use of my limited time.
Two nitpicks:
Most people think so, but actually there was an alternative, the Wartburg. The problem was that it cost more than twice as the Trabbi, and the bigger problem was that the delivery time was rather 20 years than 10 years for a Trabbi. But it was the better car.
The Trabbi was a slow two-stroker, but not that slow. With the right conditions, it could reach 100 km/h.
Oof. I’m glad I had the opportunity to visit before it shut down.
I second some of the posts above, especially the hop-on-hop-off bus tour. I do those is every European city I visit and they’re always a good way to cover a ton of ground.
I liked the German Spy Museum a lot. Accessible history of cold war espionage, and if you’re a James Bond aficionado like myself, you’ll love all the movie props on display. Likewise if you’re a movie fan in general, I can’t recommend the Deutsche Kinemathek (German Film Museum) enough. The silent era stuff is amazing, especially the Metropolis propos and designs, and there’s a huge Marlene Dietrich section. (I just checked the website and it looks like the permanent exhibition is closing at the end of October, sadly, but that means you’ve got time)
I did a WWII walking tour and didn’t enjoy it. Maybe it was just a lousy guide but he rambled on waaaayyyy too much and tried to get awkward group discussions going.
Museumsinsel was mentioned above. I literally spent seven hours there on a Sunday as museums are some of the only things open that day.