Must-see attractions in Berlin & Brandenburg

  • BERLIN, GERMANY- October 15, 2014: Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed starting on 13 August 1961. East Side Gallery is an international memorial for freedom. October 15, 2014 in Berlin

    East Side Gallery

    Friedrichshain

    The East Side Gallery is the embodiment of Berlin’s grit and guts.

  • Schloss & Park Sanssouci

    Potsdam

    This glorious park and palace ensemble is what happens when a king has good taste, plenty of cash and access to the finest architects and artists of the…

  • Schloss Sanssouci

    Potsdam

    Frederick the Great's famous summer palace, this rococo gem was designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff in 1747 and sits daintily above vine-draped…

  • Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen

    Around Berlin

    About 35km north of Berlin, Sachsenhausen was built by prisoners and opened in 1936 as a prototype for other camps. By 1945, some 200,000 people had…

  • Statue of the Great Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg standing in grand courtyard of Charlottenburg Palace.

    Schloss Charlottenburg

    City West & Charlottenburg

    Charlottenburg Palace is one of Berlin's few sites that still reflect the one-time grandeur of the Hohenzollern clan, which ruled the region from 1415 to…

  • Gemaldegalerie, Gallery

    Gemäldegalerie

    Berlin

    This museum ranks among the world's finest and most comprehensive collections of European art with about 1500 paintings spanning the arc of artistic…

  • Berlin-Hohenschonhausen Memorial, former prison of state police Stasi during communist era.; Shutterstock ID 227299543; Your name (First / Last): Josh Vogel; Project no. or GL code: 56530; Network activity no. or Cost Centre: Online-Design; Product or Project: 65050/7529/Josh Vogel/LP.com Destination Galleries

    Stasi Prison

    Berlin

    Victims of Stasi persecution often ended up in this grim remand prison, now a memorial site officially called Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Tours …

  • Restaurants and a cinema inside the Sony Center complex at the Potsdamer Platz.

    Potsdamer Platz

    Berlin

    The rebirth of the historic Potsdamer Platz was Europe's biggest building project of the 1990s, a showcase of urban renewal masterminded by such top…

  • (GERMANY OUT) Aussenansicht: Betonstelen im"E.T.A.-Hoffmann-Garten"- M?rz 1999 (Photo by Brigitte Hiss/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

    Jüdisches Museum

    Kreuzberg

    In a landmark building by American-Polish architect Daniel Libeskind, Berlin’s Jewish Museum offers a chronicle of the trials and triumphs in 2000 years…

  • Roses protruding from the Berlin Wall

    Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer

    Prenzlauer Berg

    For an insightful primer on the Berlin Wall, visit this outdoor memorial, which extends for 1.4km along Bernauer Strasse and integrates an original…

  • Tiergarten, Park

    Tiergarten

    Berlin

    Berlin’s rulers used to hunt boar and pheasants in the rambling Tiergarten until garden architect Peter Lenné landscaped the grounds in the 19th century…

  • Sony Center, Cinema

    Sony Center

    Berlin

    Designed by Helmut Jahn, the visually dramatic Sony Center is fronted by a 26-floor, glass-and-steel tower and integrates rare relics from the prewar era…

  • Sammlung Boros

    Berlin

    This Nazi-era bunker presents one of Berlin's finest private contemporary art collections, amassed by advertising guru Christian Boros who acquired the…

  • Museum für Naturkunde

    Berlin

    Fossils and minerals don’t quicken your pulse? Well, how about Tristan, the T-Rex? His skeleton is among the best-preserved in the world and, along with…

  • Zitadelle Spandau

    Around Berlin

    The 16th-century Spandau Citadel, on a little island in the Havel River, is considered one of the world’s best-preserved Renaissance fortresses. With its…

  • Hackesche Höfe

    Berlin

    The Hackesche Höfe is the largest and most famous of the courtyard ensembles peppered throughout the Scheunenviertel. Built in 1907, the eight interlinked…

  • Museum Barberini

    Potsdam

    The original Barberini Palace was a baroque Roman palazzo commissioned by Frederick the Great and bombed to bits in World War II. Since January 2017, a…

  • Zeiss Grossplanetarium

    Prenzlauer Berg

    It was the most advanced planetarium in East Germany at its opening in 1987 and after the recent renovation it has upped the scientific, technology and…

  • Chinesisches Haus

    Potsdam

    The 18th-century fad for the Far East is strongly reflected in the adorable Chinese House. The cloverleaf-shaped pavilion is among the park's most…

  • Marchenbrunnen Fairy Tale Fountain (1913) in the Volkspark Friedrichshain Park, Berlin, Germany; Shutterstock ID 220555540; Your name (First / Last): Josh Vogel; Project no. or GL code: 56530; Network activity no. or Cost Centre: Online-Design; Product or Project: 65050/7529/Josh Vogel/LP.com Destination Galleries

    Volkspark Friedrichshain

    Friedrichshain

    Berlin’s oldest public park has provided relief from urbanity since 1840, but has been hilly only since the late 1940s, when wartime debris was piled up…

  • Zoo Berlin, Zoo

    Zoo Berlin

    City West & Charlottenburg

    Berlin's zoo holds a triple record as Germany's oldest (since 1844), most species-rich and most popular animal park. Top billing at the moment goes to a…

  • Tempelhofer Feld

    Kreuzberg

    The airfield of Tempelhof Airport, which so gloriously handled the Berlin airlift of 1948–49, has been repurposed as one of the largest urban parks in the…

  • Freilandmuseum Lehde

    Spreewald

    In the protected village of Lehde, this cluster of historical Sorb farm buildings gives you a good sense of what rural life in the Spreewald was like a…

  • x-default

    Schloss Charlottenburg - Neuer Flügel

    City West & Charlottenburg

    The palace’s most beautiful rooms are the flamboyant private chambers of Frederick the Great, designed in 1746 by the period's star architect Georg…

  • Museum Berggruen

    Museum Berggruen

    City West & Charlottenburg

    Classic modern art is the ammo of this delightful museum where Picasso is especially well represented, with paintings, drawings and sculptures from all…

  • Martin Gropius Bau, Theater

    Martin-Gropius-Bau

    Berlin

    With its mosaics, terracotta reliefs and airy atrium, this Italian Renaissance–style exhibit space named for its architect (Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius…

  • Panarama Punkt, Viewpoint

    Panoramapunkt

    Berlin

    Europe’s fastest lift, Panoramapunkt yo-yos up and down the red-brick postmodern Kollhoff Tower in 20 seconds. From the bilevel viewing platform at a…

  • New Synagogue Berlin, built in 1886

    Neue Synagoge

    Berlin

    The gleaming gold dome of the Neue Synagoge is the most visible symbol of Berlin’s revitalised Jewish community. The 1866 original was Germany's largest…

  • C/O Berlin, Gallery

    C/O Berlin

    City West & Charlottenburg

    Founded in 2000, C/O Berlin is the capital's most respected private, nonprofit exhibition centre for international photography and is based at the iconic…

  • Deutsches Technikmuseum

    Kreuzberg

    A roof-mounted ‘candy bomber’ (the plane used in the 1948 Berlin Airlift) is merely the overture to this enormous and hugely engaging shrine to technology…

  • Schloss Charlottenburg – Altes Schloss

    City West & Charlottenburg

    Fronted by Andreas Schlüter’s equestrian statue of the Great Elector (1699), the baroque living quarters of Friedrich I and Sophie-Charlotte are an…

  • Alter Markt

    Potsdam

    Halfway between the Hauptbahnhof and the Altstadt, the Alter Markt is the site where Potsdam's settlement began. Under Frederick the Great, it evolved…

  • König Galerie @ St Agnes Kirche

    Kreuzberg

    If art is your religion, a pilgrimage to this church-turned-gallery is a must. Tucked into a nondescript part of Kreuzberg, this decommissioned Catholic…

  • Brücke-Museum

    Around Berlin

    In 1905 Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner founded Germany’s first modern-artist group, called Die Brücke (The Bridge)…

  • Neues Palais

    Potsdam

    The final palace commissioned by Frederick the Great, the Neues Palais has made-to-impress dimensions, a central dome and a lavish exterior capped with a…

  • Schlossgarten Charlottenburg

    City West & Charlottenburg

    The expansive park behind Schloss Charlottenburg is part formal French, part unruly English and all picturesque playground. Hidden among the shady paths,…

  • Park Sanssouci

    Potsdam

    Park Sanssouci is the oldest and most resplendent of Potsdam's many green patches. It's open from dawn til dusk year-round and is dotted with numerous…

  • x-default

    Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche

    City West & Charlottenburg

    Allied bombing in 1943 left only the husk of the west tower of this once magnificent neo-Romanesque church standing. Now an antiwar memorial, it stands…

  • Museum fur Fotografie Museum

    Museum für Fotografie

    City West & Charlottenburg

    A former Prussian officers' casino now showcases the artistic legacy of Helmut Newton (1920–2004), the Berlin-born enfant terrible of fashion and…