By Stuart Forster
Football prompted my travel to Berlin this summer. And as I discovered during my twonight stay, there are plenty of other reasons to justify a long weekend in Germany’s dynamic capital.
Given the result, perhaps it was a blessing that I didn’t get a ticket to the UEFA EURO 2024 final between England and Spain. I headed to Berlin Olympic Stadium for the round of 16 tie in which Switzerland beat Italy. An upbeat atmosphere and entertaining game made it an ideal focal point for an enjoyable city break.
Arriving the day before the game, I checked into the NH Collection Berlin Mitte Friedrichstrasse Hotel. The four-star property is next to Friedrichstrasse railway station, a 30-minute rail journey from Berlin Brandenburg Airport.
I picked up a mid-afternoon coffee strolling in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate, a 15-minute walk from my hotel. Close to the iconic landmark, a football-themed exhibition drew me into Madame Tussauds Berlin. There I snapped the waxwork likenesses of France striker Kylian Mbappé and Argentina star Lionel Messi before stepping back out onto Unter den Linden – the grand boulevard that many Berliners regard as their city’s answer to the ChampsÉlysées in Paris.
Several of the palaces and grand facades along Unter den Linden have been renovated in recent years. The Neue Wache – a squat Neoclassical building near the River Spree – houses Germany’s memorial to victims of war and dictatorship. There I paused to appreciate the raw emotion conveyed by artist Käthe Kollwitz’s sculpture of a mother cradling her lifeless son’s body.
Continuing the short distance to Museum Island, which as its name suggests has a concentration of museums and is also the site of Berlin Cathedral, I resisted the temptation to join locals sunbathing on the grass of the Lustgarten park. Instead, I pushed on five minutes’ further to the elegant café of Bode Museum, where I sipped an Apfelschorle – a mix of apple juice and sparkling water – while sitting beneath the institution’s grand dome.
Refreshed, I walked on to view photography and art exhibitions at Fotografiska Berlin, which opened last September in premises built to house a department store. Subsequent uses include as the Kunsthaus Tacheles art collective. Graffiti from that period adorns stairwells and can be seen on the way up to Veronika, the museum’s finedining restaurant. Bar Clara, whose rooftop observation platform presents views over surrounding streets, proved a classy spot for a nightcap.
Before the match, for a local’s view of Berlin’s evolving food and drink scene, I joined a walking tour focusing on the longgentrified Prenzlauer Berg district. Tour guide Tiago pointed out tramlines in the street, indicating the area was formerly in the eastern part of the once divided city. From a street corner snack bar, he ordered a Kettwurst, explaining that the sausage was East Germany’s equivalent of a hot dog. At Häppies, we shared fluffy Germknödel-style steamed dumplings with a variety of savoury and sweet fillings and heard how the café is a hit locally. Our last stop was the city’s oldest beer garden – the Prater, where drinks have been served since 1837.
On my final day in Berlin, I immersed myself in the history of espionage at the German Spy Museum, where real-life gadgets are displayed along with posters of films about spying. Imagining myself the star of one of them – while undoubtedly lacking a movie stuntman’s grace of movement – I twisted along a corridor of crisscrossed laser beams in one of the interactive exhibits.
Feeling like a beer, I strolled to the restaurant Ständige Vertretung’s riverside terrace and gazed along the Spree, sipping while reflecting on an enjoyable couple of days.