Charlottenburg is a district in the western part of Berlin. It is not very old, by European standards, but that doesn’t stop it from having an “Old Town Path” with thirteen stops and a text panel (or sometimes two) at each stop. The tenth stop on the Old Town Path Read More …
From the excellent English-language audio guide, we learned that this palace was originally built by Elector Friedrich III as a summer residence for his wife Sophie Charlotte in 1699. It was later expanded into a royal palace after Friedrich became the first Prussian King, Friedrich I. The palace was severely Read More …
This canal is called the Neukölln Ship Canal (Neuköllner Schiffahrtskanal). As the name implies, it runs through Neukölln, which is one of the twelve boroughs or districts of Berlin. From the end of the Second World War in 1945 until German reunification in 1990, Neukölln was part of the American Read More …
This ten-kilometer canal through the center of Berlin was built in the nineteenth century (1845-1850) to provide additional transportation capacity parallel to the Spree River, which at that time had more boats and barges than it could handle. Today the canal is used mainly by sightseeing boats, two of which Read More …
The former Tempelhof Airport, best known as the landing place for American supply planes during the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949, is now a public park. Since the old runways are still intact it’s a great place for cycling, inline skating and jogging. Also there is plenty of space for kite-flying, Read More …
If you ever have the duty of naming a new museum, you would be well advised to call it something else, rather than “The New Museum”, because 165 years later it might still (or again) be there and not be as new as it once was. The same goes for Read More …
After years of bickering, scandals and cost overruns, Berlin finally has its modern new Main Station (Hauptbahnhof), built from 1993 to 2006 on the site of the old Lehrter Station that had not been used since 1952. The new station has tracks on two different levels. Upstairs is the traditional Read More …
The Humboldt University in Berlin was founded in 1810 by the scholar, linguist and diplomat Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1767-1835, who for a short time — less than a year, actually — was in charge of education in the government of Prussia. During that time he and his staff not only Read More …
In 1905 Albert Einstein, who was then a 26-year-old employee of the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, published four scientific papers which among other things solved the long-standing problem of Brownian motion and introduced the totally new theory of Special Relativity. The 100th anniversary of these papers in 2005 was Read More …
Kiez is a somewhat emotionally charged word in Berlin dialect. It means your neighborhood, your distinctive small part of the city where you feel at home and people know you in the pubs. This is a word that does not exist in southern Germany, and in northern Germany it means Read More …