Berlin - Sights and attractions

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Berlin is a huge city. You can make use of the excellent bus, tram, train and underground services to get around. The perfect time to visit Berlin is May to early September, when temperatures usually hover around 70° to 80° F.

Top 10 things to do in Berlin

Here you'll find various famous landmarks and attractions of Berlin. You can find all kind of interesting facts and information about some of the city's most remarkable landmarks.

Altes Museum

The Altes Museum or Old Museum, is one of several internationally renowned museums on Berlin's Museum Island in Berlin, Germany. Since restoration work in 1966, it houses the antique collection of the Berlin State Museums, a collection of Greek and Roman antique decorative art. This building currently houses the Egyptian Museum, whose most celebrated exhibit is the bust of Nefertiti, dating from around 1350 BC. You can also see a rare portrait of Cleopatra from Alexandria. The museum opened in 1830 as the Royal Museum, the Old Museum originally housed all the art treasures on Museumsinsel. It was designed by Schinkel and is considered one of his finest buildings, with a particularly magnificent entrance rotunda, where vast neon letters declare that 'All Art has been Contemporary'.

Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate)

This triumphal arch is the only surviving Berlin city gate, in the heyday of East Germany, the structure was integrated into the Berlin Wall. This is the point where Strasse des 17. Juni becomes Unter den Linden. The gate was designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans in 1791 and was intended to resemble the Acropolis in Athens. It is 26m high, 63,5 wide and 11m deep and on the top of the door you find the so-called "Quadriga", a statue of the flying deity of victory. The Brandenburg Gate now symbolizes reunification, after dividing East and West Berlin for decades. In the Room of Silence, built into one of the guardhouses, visitors still gather to meditate and reflect on Germany's past.

Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe

This memorial is an expansive memorial dedicated to the 6 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. The memorial is a very controversial one with several painful scandals coming to light over the project's life. Some criticize the memorial for only being dedicated to murdered Jews and not to other victims of Nazi genocide. It's spooky in places, especially near the middle of the monument, where many feel a sense of confinement. Each of the concrete slabs of this memorial has its own foundation, and they tilt at differing angles. The Field of Stelae is open to the public day and night. Read more...

Gemäldegalerie

The Gemäldegalerie contains an astounding array of paintings. The main gallery contains one thousand masterpieces. These paintings are complemented by four hundred works in a study gallery on the lower floor. Most of the great European masters are represented, including works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, Goya, Velasquez and Watteau. The collection contains works from the old Bodemuseum on Museuminsel in the East, now closed, and the former Gemäldegalerie in Dahlem.

Reichstag Dome

Just north of the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag has been the seat of the Bundestag (German parliament), since 1999 following a complete renovation by Lord Norman Foster. The Bundestag dome is the iconic large glass dome at the very top of the building. The dome has a 360-degree view of the surrounding Berlin cityscape. The futuristic and transparent design of the Reichstag dome makes it a unique landmark. The best way to visit the Reichstag dome without waiting in line is to arrive at 8 AM, or to make a reservation for the pricey rooftop Käfer restaurant (030/2262-9933).

Schloss Charlottenburg

Schloss Charlottenburg, one of the finest examples of baroque architecture in Germany, was built by Sophie Charlotte. The gorgeous palace started as a modest royal summer residence in 1695, built on the orders of King Friedrich I for his wife, Sophie-Charlotte, eventually growing into the massive structure you see today. Paintings include royal portraits by Antoine Pesne, a noted court painter of the 18th century. The 138-foot-long Goldene Galerie (Golden Gallery) was the palace's ballroom. The park behind the palace was laid out in the French baroque style beginning in 1697, and was transformed into an English garden in the early 19th century.

Pergamon Museum

The Pergamon Museum is situated on the Museum Island in Berlin. The museum is subdivided into the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum, and the museum of Islamic art. The Near East Museum, in the south wing, contains one of the largest collections anywhere of antiquities from ancient Babylonia, Persia, and Assyria. The museum of Islamic art contains art from the 8th to the 19th century ranging from Spain to India, the main attraction is the Mshatta facade. The antiquity collection contains sculpture from archaic to Hellenistic ages as well as artwork from Greek and Roman antiquity: architecture, sculptures, inscriptions, mosaics, bronzes, jewelry and pottery.

Bebelplatz

Bebelplatz is a public square along Unter den Linden, in Berlin-Mitte, approached just before you reach Staatsoper. Here is an eloquent memorial to the notorious Nazi book burning that took place here on the night of May 10, 1933. Bebelplatz is bounded to the east by the State Opera building, to the south by, Berlin's oldest Roman Catholic church, St. Hedwig's Cathedral, and to the west by buildings of Humboldt University. The Bebelplatz is best known as the site of the book burning ceremony held on May 10, 1933 by members of the "brownshirts" and Nazi youth groups, on the instigation of the Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. Today a glass plate set into the Bebelplatz, giving a view of empty bookcases, commemorates the book burning.

Hitler's Bunker

The site of the bunker where Hitler met his maker is now a parking lot, but an explanatory panel chronicles his final days, shows a diagram of the vast bunker network, technical data on how it was constructed and what happened to it after WWII. The Führer Bunker, as it was called, was where Hitler staged his last stand, committing suicide on April 30, 1945, as Soviet troops encircled the bunker.

Tiergarten

Tiergarten is the largest green space in central Berlin, covering 2.5 sq. km (just under 1 sq. mile), with more than 23km (14 miles) of meandering walkways. Inside the park you can find the Berlin Zoo, it houses some 750 animals of all shapes and sizes; the most recent arrivals to excite crowds were giant pandas in 2003 although lemurs, armadillos and baby Serbian tigers spurred plenty of interest in 2006.