My Berlin: Classy Culture, Classy City
By Jake Ryan Stanley
As one of Europe’s youngest capital cities, Berlin could perhaps be likened to a younger sibling, being only 750 years compared with London or even Paris which have been around for over 1500 years. That is what gives Berlin its allure, because as a younger relative of other European capitals, Berlin continues to consistently reinvent itself into something new and fresh at any given opportunity (or so it would seem!). Personally, Berlin will always be a historical city, with hundreds, even thousands of small historical quirks waiting to be found, and nothing are greater testaments to Berlin’s historical oddities, than the hundreds of museums, which meticulously chart every obscure event to occur in the city, be they musical, cultural, historical or even record to its broad-mindedness (the Erotikmuseum certainly springs to mind as one example here, not to mention the Schwules Museum or the Guggenheim): from a medieval trade town, to a cultural mecca in the C17th, power centre of the Third Reich, divided island in the middle of East Germany, up to its rejuvenation into a city for alternative culture, the city has always been heads and shoulders ahead of other German cities when it came to that liberal culture which dominated in the 1920’s and has come back to the fore since the 1980’s. In addition to the famous liberalism, Berlin has continued to impress me as a centre for high culture (the city is not exactly a stranger to the term!), with impressive dedication to maintaining monuments which follow the history, despite the great financial cost to the city (the Berliner Dom being one more notorious example). The city is unique, in that it has never developed as one whole; rather as a collection of many different towns, so at least in Berlin, you can be certain that no two areas will ever be quite the same, and frankly who would really want that? Truly, no two people will ever have the same experience of the city, be they the student-bubble of Friedrichshain, the middle-class and delightfully rustic German suburb of Charlottenburg, the touristy Mitte, or the unconventional and diverse Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain.
Top 10 Must-Dos in Berlin
1. Jüdisches Museum and Denkmal für die Ermordeten Jüden Europas.
2. Grosser Wannsee or the Grosser Müggelsee (the choice is yours)
3. Any of the Fairtrade restaurants but most remain unnamed
4. Der Druide on Schönhauser Allee
5. Das Nikolaiviertel
6. Am Zeughaus Markt occurs every Sunday on the street running alongside the Deutsche Historisches Museum
7. The suburb of Dahlem around the Freie Universität Berlins
8. Kietz Café and Restaurant (on Müggelheimer Strasse)
9. Schleusenkrug Restaurant (in Tiergarten)
10. Maxim-Gorki Theater
By Jake Ryan Stanley
As one of Europe’s youngest capital cities, Berlin could perhaps be likened to a younger sibling, being only 750 years compared with London or even Paris which have been around for over 1500 years. That is what gives Berlin its allure, because as a younger relative of other European capitals, Berlin continues to consistently reinvent itself into something new and fresh at any given opportunity (or so it would seem!). Personally, Berlin will always be a historical city, with hundreds, even thousands of small historical quirks waiting to be found, and nothing are greater testaments to Berlin’s historical oddities, than the hundreds of museums, which meticulously chart every obscure event to occur in the city, be they musical, cultural, historical or even record to its broad-mindedness (the Erotikmuseum certainly springs to mind as one example here, not to mention the Schwules Museum or the Guggenheim): from a medieval trade town, to a cultural mecca in the C17th, power centre of the Third Reich, divided island in the middle of East Germany, up to its rejuvenation into a city for alternative culture, the city has always been heads and shoulders ahead of other German cities when it came to that liberal culture which dominated in the 1920’s and has come back to the fore since the 1980’s. In addition to the famous liberalism, Berlin has continued to impress me as a centre for high culture (the city is not exactly a stranger to the term!), with impressive dedication to maintaining monuments which follow the history, despite the great financial cost to the city (the Berliner Dom being one more notorious example). The city is unique, in that it has never developed as one whole; rather as a collection of many different towns, so at least in Berlin, you can be certain that no two areas will ever be quite the same, and frankly who would really want that? Truly, no two people will ever have the same experience of the city, be they the student-bubble of Friedrichshain, the middle-class and delightfully rustic German suburb of Charlottenburg, the touristy Mitte, or the unconventional and diverse Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain.
Top 10 Must-Dos in Berlin
1. Jüdisches Museum and Denkmal für die Ermordeten Jüden Europas.
2. Grosser Wannsee or the Grosser Müggelsee (the choice is yours)
3. Any of the Fairtrade restaurants but most remain unnamed
4. Der Druide on Schönhauser Allee
5. Das Nikolaiviertel
6. Am Zeughaus Markt occurs every Sunday on the street running alongside the Deutsche Historisches Museum
7. The suburb of Dahlem around the Freie Universität Berlins
8. Kietz Café and Restaurant (on Müggelheimer Strasse)
9. Schleusenkrug Restaurant (in Tiergarten)
10. Maxim-Gorki Theater
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