The Heaven over Berlin

Now it is 15:OO hrs. I am waiting for my friend Monika in the corner of Neue Schönhauser Straße, our meeting point.

I came to Berlin by road trip from Amsterdam. I scraped together with some guys whom I found on Mitfahrgelegenheit.de, a popular website for travelers —or locals— who are looking for cheap and different ways of traveling.

My first impression when I crossed the city for the first time was bewitching. Throughout my life I have spent a lot of time reading novels and watching movies that take part on Berlin. Actually, I felt as Franz Biberkopf in Berlin Alexanderplatz, viewing for the first time a new but known place.

Berlin is a big city, but it’s a perfect place to ride a bike. It’s possible to do everything on a bike. Without question it is the best and cheapest option to discover this amazing city.

In fact, the entire city is a monument, full of history and culture. Whoever wants to walk across contemporary history could do it walking from Karl Mark Ave, and when you go across Grunerstraße you will discover all the remarkable differences with Alexanderstraße, the differences between East Berlin and West Berlin that stay a live.

In the summer Berlin has really nice weather. In sunny days I used to drink a good German beer the “Kater Holzig”, an old bar in the bank of the Spree River. The place is usually filled with easy-going people.

Berlin is famous for the Currywurst, and the best not fanciful place for eating is the “Curry 36”, which is close to U-Mehringdamm, cheap and good but always full.

The best recommendation that I can give to contemporary art lovers is “The Hamburger Bahnhof”. At this place you can find the most important collection of modern and contemporary art in the city. By the way, the cities have a lot of independent galleries and museums. “The C/O Gallery”, in the old royal post office (Postfuhramt) and the “Berlinische Galerie” are good options, too.

One enigmatic place in Berlin is the BornholmerStraße, a railway station in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin. That place used to be in films—and in real life— the place where the KGB and the CIA used to exchange prisoners.

To Sundays just one tip, the Mauerpark.


Finally, and after some amazing weeks in Berlin, it was time to leave and I still remember the first time I saw the heaven over Berlin, so, I understood the reason for the name of the Wim Wender’s film, “Der Himmelüber Berlin”.