QUIRKY BERLIN
You’ve seen Checkpoint Charlie and the Reichstag, so what next? Gemma Elwin Harris scratches beneath Berlin’s surface to discover the weird and the wonderful, from ping-pong bars and floating beds to the rise of Ostalgia
1 Drive an icon
Ever wondered what it’s like to drive a car that turns heads? Driving a Trabant will certainly get you stared at, although people may also laugh and point. Since the Berlin Wall came down, the ‘Trabi’ has become a symbol of Communist-era East Germany. The car was originally designed as East Germany’s answer to the VW Beetle. It once cost a year’s salary to buy, but it’s now an object of affectionate nostalgia.
The Berlin-Classic Trabi Safari, a self-drive tour in which you follow your guide, is a great way to get a feel for Berlin. It’s a shuddering, bone-shaking ride from the elegant Gendarmenmarkt and back via the gleaming new Potsdamer Platz, the glass-domed Reichstag, Museum Island and other landmarks. The commentary (via walkie-talkie to your car radio) may be brief, but you can’t beat the roar of the engine, the feel of the furry seats and the rising smell of wet dog as the Trabi’s snot-green fibreglass body putters into action. A one-and-a-half hour car tour for four people costs €100. It’s €90 for three people, €70 for two and €50 if you’re driving solo. www.trabi-safari.de
2 Sleep in a madhouse
The idea of waking up bathed in a mysterious red light beneath a forest of Blair Witch twig shapes, as insects whirr and chirrup in the darkness, might well make your skin crawl. Ditto sleeping in a coffin, a cage, or a floating bed. But that’s all part of the Propeller Island experience, a hotel where each of the 30 rooms has been designed by artist and musician Lars Stroschen.
Like camping in an art project, a night at this charmingly kooky Charlottenberg hotel won’t be your most comfortable option – beds are narrow, bathrooms basic and the basins are made from beer kegs. But you won’t forget your stay in a hurry.
Stroschen began work on this crazy place by turning two rooms in his apartment into fantastical guestrooms for extra income. The hotel grew from there, and he still lives in the block. If you fancy checking out other people’s rooms, flip the sign on your door to ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ and go exploring. Prices range from €75 to €180 for one person, and each extra guest costs €15. Propeller Island, Albrecht Achilles Strasse 58, www.propeller-island.com
3 Discover underground history
Head down into the bowels of Berlin’s Gesundbrunnen subway station to explore a series of air-raid shelters preserved since World War II – one of the few complexes still intact. As you find out during the tour, Hitler decided to save his pennies so only 90% of these civilian bunkers built could actually withstand the impact of a bomb. As a result, even those allowed in – only people with a ‘D’ for ‘pure Deutsche’ marked in their passports – were far from safe.
Seeing the claustrophobic rooms coated in luminous paint (it’s poisonous so don’t touch) gives you an idea of how dire the conditions were, and the guide’s detailed account of life in Nazi Germany is utterly involving, from pre-war TV propaganda to the arrival of Russian troops in May 1945, when children as young as 12 were armed to fight.
The Dark Worlds tour is run by the Berliner Unterwelten history society, which also provided consultants to advise on the design of the set for Hitler’s bunker in the recent film Downfall.
The Berliner Unterwelten office is located in the southern atrium of the Gesundbrunnen tube station. The one-and-a-half hour tours cost €9, or €7 for students and seniors. www.berliner-unterwelten.de
4 Drink your fill
Drink as much as you like, pay as much as you like. It’s not a concept that you can imagine working in the UK. The Weinerei, a quirky Mitte wine bar set up by a bunch of friends, relies on the goodwill of its customers. Visitors pay one euro for their first glass of table wine (some dodgier than others, join the debate around the bar), then help themselves to refills as the evening unravels. On the way out, they simply throw however much they think they owe into the pot by the door.How does this place stay open?
One of the arty thirtysomethings lounging on a sofa suggests that the idea works because Germans tend to behave “correctly” – even when it comes to paying for the Weinerei’s simple home cooking. Perhaps the fact that this bar looks like a Catholic grandmother’s front room, with kitschy Madonnas gazing from the walls, shames cheapskates into coughing up. Weinerei, Veteranenstrasse 15, Mitte
5 See the writing on the wall
A short walk from the Ostbahnhof, the East Side Gallery memorial of freedom on Mühlenstrasse is one of the most interesting sections of the Berlin Wall still standing. The remnant, which is over half a mile long, was covered in more than 100 paintings by international artists after the collapse of East Germany. Despite a renovation in 2000, much of the gallery is either flaking or covered in grafitti, but it’s worth a stroll to see the messages of peace and political commentary that remain – layers of reaction and emotion, graffiti and all. www.eastsidegallery.com 6 Swim in a tanker
Popular with young Berliners, the Badeschiff (meaning ‘bathing ship’), is a cluster of cargo containers floating on the River Spree with great views of the city. The two-year-old pool is packed in summer, when locals flock here for a daytime swim or nightly DJ parties. Winter and spring, the Badeschiff is covered with a special bubble housing a sauna and daybeds for massage treatments. This space-age lido is not for the prudish because Badeschiff regulars tend to check each other out, and come here to see and be seen. It costs €12 for three hours including sauna, or €8 for kids. Arena Berlin, Eichenstraße 4, www.badeschiff.de 7 Go back in time
‘Ostalgia’ – what Berliners call nostalgia for Communist-era East Germany – is the word for this tiny time-capsule of a museum opposite the cathedral. Fittingly housed in a slab of concrete, the new DDR Museum is the place to pick up quirky trivia about life in the German Democratic Republic, or DDR as it’s called in German.Did you know that East German toddlers were communally potty trained, all lined up in a row, or that in the 1950s there was a standard-issue toy called Mr Energy Waster to encourage children to turn off the lights? From the Stasi (secret police) to the East German ’60s pop band the Puhdys, this museum is an entertaining, bite-size slice of life. Entry costs €5 or €3 for students and seniors. DDR Museum, Spreepromenade, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 1, www.ddr-museum.de
8 Buy a little green man
The vertically challenged but much-loved ‘Ampelmann’, a Homberg-hatted fellow found on East Berlin pedestrian crossing signs, has become a design icon. Designer Markus Heckhausen began creating Ampelmann-branded products 10 years ago and is responsible for saving him from extinction. For a quirky souvenir you can pick up Ampelmann lights, mirrors or babygrows – even ice-trays and jelly babies. Ampelmann Galerie Shop, Hackesche Höfe, Hof 5, Rosenthaler Strasse 40-41, www.ampelmann.de 9 Try the latest craze
Dr Pong. No, it’s not a malodorous Bond villain, but a continuing craze with Berlin’s kids: a ping-pong bar. On any given Saturday night, you’ll find dozens of Heineken-swilling teens and twentysomethings playing table tennis here. Even though it does have a strip-light, this dive is noticeably cooler than a community hall – if only because the players are kitted out in retro junk-shop threads. We can’t explain it, but somehow ping pong is hip here. As Dr Pong’s slogan goes: It’s all about image. Dr Pong, Eberswalder Strasse 21, Prenzlauer Berg, www.drpong.net
10 Eat in the dark
These days Berlin isn’t the only city where you can eat in total darkness, but unsicht-Bar in the Mitte district is one of the original dark restaurants and it’s still the largest. Just as at Zurich’s Blind Cow and Dans Le Noir? in London and Paris, the waiting staff here are all blind or visually impaired. Choose from beef, lamb, vegetable, fish or poultry menus, or if trying to guess what you’re eating isn’t enough of a challenge in the pitch black, go for the surprise menu. Three courses start at €33. There are also sister restaurants in Cologne and Hamburg. unsicht-Bar, Gormannstrasse 14, Mitte, www.unsicht-bar.com
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