- In the summer of 2020, I traveled to Berlin in Germany, shortly after the city had
reopened most of its attractions. In this video I want to show you what
visiting Germany is like now and share my top 27 things to do in Berlin during the new normal. (upbeat music) Good morning and welcome to Berlin. We're heading out for the
number one site in Berlin now, which is of course the Brandenburg Gate. (upbeat music) The Brandenburg Gate was commissioned by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II and completed in 1791 as a symbol of peace and as an entrance to the grand
boulevard Unter den Linden. The sculpture on top called Quadriga represents the winged god as a victory on a chariot drawn by four horses. Unfortunately, she
wasn't always successful at bringing victory and get kidnapped by Napoleon in 1807 on the returning to
Berlin seven years later, when she was saved by Prussian troops. After the division of Germany, after the Second World War, the gates here became trapped
right behind the Berlin Wall that separated the Eastern and the Western part of the city. And now after the
Reunification Business Symbol or the Reunified Germany and yeah it's really an impressive site. (upbeat music) So here we are now, right
in front of the symbol of the modern German democracy. This is the German parliament, the so-called Reichstag. The Reichstag building
housed the German Parliament from 1894 until 1933, when it burned down under
mysterious circumstances at the beginning of the
Nazi reign in Germany. After the Second World
War, it fell into disuse and was only rebuilt in the 1990s to house parliament of the reunified
Federal Republic of Germany. The glass dome of the Reichstag offers spectacular views of Berlin. (upbeat music) Here we are at the Holocaust Memorial or Memorial to the
murdered Jews of Europe. In my opinion this is definitely one of the most impressive
sites in all of Berlin. Let's take a look inside. Between 1941 and 1945, the German Nazi regime and its collaborators murdered
more than 6 million Jews from all over occupied Europe. The Holocaust Memorial
in the heart of Berlin is Germany's central Memorial
to this unimaginable genocide. (calm music) So now we are inside
the Holocaust Memorial and you might be wondering why are there no written words anywhere? Why are there no stars of David,
for example, those symbols? Well, it's all about
the feeling that you get when wandering around in this field here and the feeling you get is
really like kind of a sense of being disoriented, lost and this feels really
dehumanizing in a way, like all this cold concrete around you. And this is exactly the
feeling that the artist, Peter Eisenman, who
designed this memorial, wanted you to have. (calm music) If you want more information
about the Holocaust, you can visit the excellent
information center situated under the Holocaust Memorial. And here I am at the most
important non monument, if you wanna call it that in Berlin. This is the site of the führer bunker where Adolf Hitler found shelter before he killed himself in 1945 and there is nothing here. As you can see it's a parking lot. Germany doesn't really know
what to do with this site, obviously it has a super dark history and yeah the bukler is
underground obviously and you can't really see it but this is a very historic place. (upbeat music) So, we are now at Potsdamer Platz. This square was once part
of the border between East and West Germany. So it's completely inaccessible and rebuilding the square was one of the most ambitious
architectural projects of the 1990s and I think the result was spectacular. Today Potsdamer Platz
has a lots of offices, theaters, cinemas, hotels,
apartments and museums. One of the architectural
highlights of the areas, the Sony Center, with
its 10-flight glass roof and a pretty good favoring plaza. The Sony Center also
features the popular Museum of Film and Television. So now I'm gonna find a scooter and then we're gonna head
over to Checkpoint Charlie. (upbeat music) By walking it would've
taken me around 19 minutes from the Potsdamer Platz to
here, to the Checkpoint Charlie and now with escooter was just 6 minutes, it's amazing. So these scooters open up
a world of possibilities that you can save so much time. I highly recommend taking
them if you are traveling to Berlin. Here we are at the Checkpoint Charlie, that was once the most
important checkpoint between the two Berlins. I'm in the Soviet sector and the American sectors
are right there behind me. You can see the portrait
of an American soldier. We're in the Soviet sectors, so the American soldiers
looking into the Soviet sector and then on the other side where I'm in the former American sector, you would see the portrait
of a Soviet soldier looking into the American sector. So yeah, this is a potent
symbol of the cold war. And for a brief moment in 1961, American and Soviet tanks faced off here during what became known
as the Berlin Crisis, getting the world close
to a third world war but luckily this never happened. (upbeat music) So after a quick scooter ride, we're now on Museumsinsel, Museum Island. This island has several
amazing art museums and it also has one of the
most important churches of Berlin. This is the Berlin Cathedral, the Belina dome, Berlin Cathedral, from 1905, was the largest protestant
church in Germany. Commissioned by the last German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, it was severely damaged
during the Second World War and only partly rebuild afterwards. The church's basement houses
the Hohenzollern crypt, which is the final resting place of 94 members of Germany's
former royal family. (upbeat music) So we are now climbing
up to the viewing point, to the dome of the cathedral. It's 269 steps, if I remember correctly, so it might take a while. (upbeat music) So I think the climb up
here is definitely worth it. Check out the view, it's amazing. (upbeat music) And here we are in one of the most
beautiful squares of Berlin, this is the Gendarmenmarkt, named after a regiment of French refugees that were fighting in the Prussian army in the 18th century. And it is a beautiful square
with two big cathedrals, French cathedral and a German cathedral and it also has the concert house, a big concert hall,
really beautiful square. (upbeat music) For dinner, I decided to head over to the
Augustiner am Gendarmenmarkt which is a popular Bavarian restaurant right next to the square. Of course I got the proper German beer and it was one liter. It's not really pure beer though, I got beer mixed with lemonade 'cause I still need to do a lot of sightseeing for you tomorrow but cheers guys. Food arrived and I ordered a really traditional Southern German dish, this is Schweinebraten
mit Kartoffel Kloesse so roasted pork with dumplings and a dark beer sauce. It looks really good. (upbeat music) I'm starting the day off today with a nice German breakfast
here at the bäckereias, the bakery. I got a piece of cake and the so called, rosinenschnecke, which is a baked pastry with frosting and it looks super good. (upbeat music) So now here we are at the
Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, the Berlin Wall Memorial. The wall was built almost
exactly on this day, 59 years ago in 1961, to keep the German
citizens of Eastern Germany locked into their own country because so many of them
had escaped to the West. Between 1949 and 1961
socialist East Germany, the so-called GDR lost 3.6 million people, that immigrated to Western Germany looking for a better life. A number so high that it put the GDR on the brink of collapse. In a desperate attempt
to stop the immigration, the GDR government decided
to lock its population into the country by constructing a four to five border system and giving it's soldiers strict orders to shoot anyone who would try to cross it. (upbeat music) So here we are at the Window
of Remembrances in Memorial to the brave people who lost their lives trying to escape from the GDR. And what's really shocking
about this Memorial is that a lot of these
people are really young. Some are only children and they still lost their life
trying to cross the border. Many of them were shot or they drowned or got
killed in other ways while trying to cross the wall or the German fortified border and yeah, it's a really moving memorial here at the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer. (upbeat music) Other important parts of
the Berlin Wall Memorial are a 70 meter long reconstructed
section of the board of fortifications, Documentation Center and the Modern Chapel of Reconciliation. (upbeat music) So it's time for the most
iconic dish from Berlin that's of course, currywurst and it looks so delicious. I'm here at the Kaonnopke's Imbiss, one of the best place to get it, let's try it. So good, it's great, this is excellent. After lunch I stopped for a quick drink next to River Spree and I got myself and
other berliner weisse. This is the version with woodruff and it's green as you can see. The berliner weisse is a refreshing, slightly sour beer that is usually served with either green woodruff
or red raspberry syrup. Let's try it. (upbeat music) It's really nice and refreshing, like the taste is kind of sweet, mixed with the beer, a little
bit sour, really tasty. All right, as you can see,
we're next to the river, next to the spree, as
it's called in German and we're gonna do a little
boats tour for one hour. I think it's gonna be really cool. Let's go on a river cruise
around Museum Island. (upbeat music) I really enjoyed this relaxing tour of the center of Berlin, that covered many famous sites like the Berlin Cathedral, the TV tower, the Reichstag
and the Chancellor's Office. Most boats leave on the
eastern side of Museum Island, close to the GDR Museum. The boat company I used was
called Reederei Hadynski. I'll include a link to the company and all the other sites
that I mentioned this video in the description below. (upbeat music) And I'm crossing the bridge
to get back to Museumsinsel, Museum Island and you're gonna visit the neues
museum, the new museum now, with one really famous exhibit. Together with the equally
famous Pergamonmuseum the neues museum is the main
attraction of Museum Island. Its undisputed star is a 3,300 year old bust of the eternally beautiful
Egyptian, Queen Nefertiti. The museum also features lots
of other Egyptian sculptures and prehistoric artifacts, like the 3000 year old Berlin gold hat, which is covered in astrological symbols and might have helped ancient priests calculate the movements
of the sun and moon. (upbeat music) So here we are in the most
famous square of Berlin, this is Alexanderplatz, it's the very heart of Berlin, there're lots of shopping
malls around here and it's super busy every day. Once the most important
square of East Berlin, Alexanderplatz, is today
the most visited area after Reunified City and one of the busiest
squares in all of Europe. Shopping options on the square include the giant Alexa Shopping Mall and a big Galeria
Kaufhof department store. And now I'm at a really
famous landmark of Berlin, this is the Weltzeituhr, the world clock. It can be used to determine the local time in 148 cities around the world. And then it was already time for dinner. (upbeat music) So, I'm here now at the Braufactum, which is a craft beer and burger place. I got this Colonia summer beer and it's really tasty. Cheers. So good, this is the
(inaudible) burger, so nice and sweet potato fries. (upbeat music) Next I meet up with my good friend, Jesco, to go for a typical Berlin style bar hall. (upbeat music) We're at the Kottbusser Tor now, the Berliners call it Kotti, it's a great place for going out, there's lots of bars and the cool thing is
Jesco used to live here. So do you know maybe a cool
place where we could go? - Let's go to this region called the bars. - Excellent. (upbeat music) So we walked around a little bit we found this really nice
craft beer bar called Biererei and we got a nice local
beer called kirsch weisse. (upbeat music) After checking out a few more bars we walked over to the Admiralsbrücke. (upbeat music) So I lost count of how
many beers I've had today but it's probably gotta be the last one, it's the Berliner kindl radler. So once again beer mixed with lemonade and I must say this bridge
is a super nice place so thanks to Jesco for recommending it and yeah I think this is a
great second night in Berlin so cheers and then I'll
see you again tomorrow. Good night guys. (upbeat music) All right, so today
we're taking the s-bahn to get to the first site. Public transport in Berlin is super quick and reliable is really
one of the best ways to get around the city. (upbeat music) So we are today in one of
my all time favorite sites in Berlin. This is the East Side Gallery. It's the largest open air
mural art gallery in the world. The way this came to be is in 1989 the wall finally came to an end. It was opened and
destroyed for the most part but 1.3 kilometers of
wall were preserved here and painted by international artists and it's so beautiful, such a nice place to discover in a warm sunny afternoon like today and that's what we're gonna do right now, so let's check out the East Side Gallery. (upbeat music) A lot of the murals of
the East Side Gallery are quite political and express ideas of
freedom, peace and tolerance. Some of the most famous ones
are Vrubel's satiric depiction of the fraternal kiss between GDR and Soviet leaders Honecker and Brezhnev, Alavi's "It happened in November", Noir's "Homage to the Young" and Klingenstein's "Detour
to the Japanese Sector". And this is another really
famous mural by Birgit Kinder and it shows a Trabant, quite
a typical Houston driven car, breaking through the
Berlin wall into freedom and the license plate reads
9th of November, 1989, which is the date of the
fall of the Berlin Wall. (upbeat music) I took the s-bahn to Charlottenburg and decided to have
another very typical dish from Berlin for lunch. And now we're at a place that a lot of people say
is Berlin's best kebap. All right, let's see if that's true. It's called SuperHahn. (upbeat music) Ah, this kebab looks so good and doner, as you would say in German, is so nice. It looks so good and fresh. (upbeat music) Oh, wow, mhmm, this is delicious and so good, you can
really tell it's fresh, high-quality ingredients, so happy, it's delicious. (upbeat music) And we made it, this is
Schloss Charlottenburg or Charlottenburg Palace in English. It's the former residents
of the Prussian Kings, Prussia played a leading rule
in the unification of Germany in the 19th century and this was a castle of the Royal family. (upbeat music) The palace's most beautiful rooms are the private quarters
of King Frederick the Great in the new wing. They include the white Hall banquet room and the Golden Gallery, a rococo fantasy of mirrors
and golden decorations. It's truly magnificent castle, just a little bit sad that
it's run to be the empty because a lot of the decorations and fringe has been lost
in the Second World War but nonetheless, it's beautiful. You can really imagine what life must have been like here
during the 18th Century. (upbeat music) Other attractions of the palace include the more somber winter chambers, the baroque old palace and the palace park, which is perfect for a
long stroll in summer. (upbeat music) And now I'm here in front of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, this was once a magnificent church but during a bombing in 1943, it was almost completely destroyed and the leftovers serve as
a anti war memorial today, it's pretty impressive and definitely worth a visit. After its destruction
during the Second World War, the remains of the
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche were stabilized and then in 1960s, a modern
octagonal hall of worship and a bell tower were added. (upbeat music) So, I'm now walking down the
so-called Kurfürstendamm, which is one of the most famous
shopping streets in Berlin, it's really beautiful, lots and lots of shops. So if you're into shopping this is definitely the
place for you in Berlin. (upbeat music) And we're gonna start our
day off really sweet today with a trip to Ritter
Sport Bunte Schokowelt. Ritter Sport is my favorite
kind of chocolate from Germany. I think this is gonna be amazing, let's take a look inside the shop. (upbeat music) The Ritter Sport Bunte Schokowelt acts as a fun flagship
store for Ritter Sport and its most famous products. The colorful square
100 gram chocolate bars that are available in
seemingly infinite varieties. I even had a chance to
create my own chocolate at the entrance. You can select the ingredients and then they prepare it fresh for you, so I'm really excited to
see how that will turn out. (upbeat music) And there he's looking for
my self designed chocolate. (upbeat music) And then it was finally time to taste my self-designed
Ritter Sport chocolate bar. So it has pepper, gummy
bears and M&M's and wow. I took an escooter to get
to my next destination. (upbeat music) And now I'm standing in the middle of one of the
biggest inner city parks in the world, this is the Tiergarten and right there behind me is
one of the major landmarks of Berlin, this is the Siegessäule, with the golden winged guard
as a victory at the top. The Berliners called her Goldelse and yeah, let's go for a
little walk around the park, I think it's gonna be really
nice to discover it some more. (upbeat music) And behind me, you can see the
original purpose of the park, it used to be the preferred hunting ground for the Prussian kings. Later on, it was converted
into a public park and that is what it
still serves as to date. (upbeat music) And now I'm standing in front
of the biggest shopping mall in continental Europe, this is the Kadewe or Kaufhaus
des Westens in German. It is huge and it also
has a legendary food court on the sixth floor which is great timing
'cause I'm really hungry. So let's get inside and check out what's in store for us at the Kadewe. (upbeat music) Here we are, this is
the legendary food hall. (upbeat music) I decided to have lunch here and I was in the mood
for some Japanese food to mix things up a little. I'm gonna have some delicious sushi now. (upbeat music) Yeah, that was truly a fantastic meal and now I'm gonna maybe look around a little more here in the shops and then I'll catch my train to Prague. (upbeat music) So those are my
recommendations for Berlin, what are yours? If you're from there or if
you've been there before, please make sure to leave your tips and advice in the comment
box below this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to Max Nomad for new travel videos
published every week. I'm Max Nomad and I will talk to you again soon.
