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Berlin is four times the size of Paris, and even though the city consolidated its 23 districts into 12 in 2001, you?re still left with 23 areas (Kiez) in which Berliners often find everything they need. Public transportation is far-reaching and effective, though, and you?ll grow to love it as you shuttle between the four areas with the most sights: Mitte, Tiergarten, Charlottenburg, and Kreuzberg.
When it comes to dining andpartying, you can opt to stay in Mitte or head out into a ?Kiez?, the generic term for a particularly lively sub-neighbourhood of a city district. With all the choices in each neighbourhood, people tend to stick to one area once the night begins (or if they're exhausted from the great sightseeing, to stay close to their hotel). Though there's a range of places in each district, bars in Potsdamer Platz and western Berlin are often more clean-cut and targeted at the over-30 set. Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg have a mix of hole-in-the-wall and trendy venues, while Friedrichshain is really for the unwashed and adventurous.
Mitte
Since reunification, Mitte (?middle?) has rightly snatched back the title of most-visited district from Charlottenburg. On and off the boulevard Unter den Linden, whose trees Marlene Dietrich once extolled in song, are baroque and classical monuments to Prussian culture. The proximity of state libraries, the State Opera, Humboldt University, the old Arsenal (now the German History Museum), Gendarmenmarkt, Museum Island, Berliner Dom, and the abandoned East German Parliament building make for more talk, less walk tours. The architecturally humbler but more neighbourhood-like area of Mitte is the Scheunenviertel, whose layout looks as if 17th-century planners got interrupted during a game of pick-up sticks. It?s on these streets that the casually chic saunter from courtyard gallery to sidewalk café, pointing out directions to tourists seeking out the latest hotspots or traces of the Jewish community that lived here from the late 17th-century, welcomed by the Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm, until the mass deportations of the Nazi era.
Tiergarten
Tiergarten is both a district and the name of the 255 hectare park that began as the Great Elector?s hunting grounds in the 1600s and became increasingly more civilised with landscaping in the 1800s. Traffic passes through it, doing a dosey-doe around the Siegessäule (Victory Column). Slicing though the park?s length is Straße des 17. Juni, which leads to the Brandenburg Gate at the eastern end. Just south of it are the museums of the Kulturforum and Potsdamer Platz.
Potsdamer Platz is not a single square (Platz), but a small area of streets between soaring corporate buildings that draw thousands of Sony and DaimlerChrysler workers and tourists each day. The tourists gape at the modern architecture, see a film, or visit the state museums of the nearby Kulturforum. The bars and restaurants around Potsdamer Platz are modern and touristy (or for the business set), yet locals meeting up at the several cinemas here inevitably pop in for convenience?s sake.
Charlottenburg
If downtown to you means wide, traffic-filled streets, crowds of shoppers, five-star hotels and tall buildings, then Charlottenburg comes closest to fitting the bill in Berlin. Much of what was here was bombed in the war and built anew in the 1950s. The nexus of activity is the knot where Kufürstendamm, Joachimsthaler Straße, Bahnhof Zoo and Tauentzienstraße come together. Follow what becomes an increasingly silken ribbon down Kurfürstendamm (Ku?damm) and the setting becomes more genteel where you can?t see the buildings for the trees. West Berlin?s young scene met in the bars and cafés branching off Savignyplatz and even if the Szene has moved east, the fine shops here just roll their eyes at the thought of being compared to their eastern counterparts. Nearby but isolated from the hoi polloi is Schloss Charlottenburg, the residence of King Friedrich I.
Some of Berlin?s best restaurants reside in hotels in the Charlottenburg district, and there are plenty of esteemed chef-owned restaurants as well. Residents in the west tend to be more affluent and fashion-conscious, and the bar and restaurant scene caters to that. Of course young people go out here, but those over thirty will appreciate the more professional service, more mature company, and low count of penny-pinching students and hipsters.
Kreuzberg
Thanks to a large Turkish community and more hippies, anarchists and alternative folks than you can shake a didgeridoo at, Kreuzberg feels neither East nor West. It was the black sheep of West Berlin, left alone in its far-off room to play loud music and draw on the walls (literally, it was parked in a dead-end, cornered by The Wall). In 1987 social and economic frustration exploded into violence and vandalism during the traditionally political demonstrations of May Day. Every year since, the city prepares for a long night of stone-throwing and burning automobiles. May 1st is essentially Kreuzberg?s way of reliving its 15 minutes of fame. The rest of the days are marked by backgammon at the men?s clubs, café-sitting on the Landwehrkanal, and ambling down the popular drags Oranienstraße and Bergmannstraße. Two major museums, the House at Checkpoint Charlie and the Jewish Museum, are planted in the staid parts of the district.
Two Kiezes in Kreuzberg stand out with a high concentration of restaurants, cafés, bars and clubs. Oranienstraße is for the alternative set of all ages, nationalities, and sexual orientation. Those who hang out around the Bergmannstrasse/Mehringdamm area are perhaps a bit more pulled together and grey on the edges, but live music and gay venues keep things adventurous.
Prenzlauer Berg
On a low hill northeast of Mitte, 'Prenzl' Berg' is an old working-class district in the former East Berlin that came through the war relatively unscathed. After 1989 the cool brigade pounced on the area, and houses that were once home to East German punks were renovated in odes to pastel. In addition to some good paint jobs, the district was also introduced to that western art form, graffiti. The number of wine shops and young parents pushing pricey prams indicates the level of gentrification the area has reached. The best places to soak up the atmosphere are Kollwitzplatz, Helmholzplatz and along Kastanienallee (all near U-Bahn Eberswalderstraße). One of Prenzlauer Berg?s attractions is a 19th-century brewery complex that is now the Kulturbrauerei culture centre.
A good time to visit is Saturday when the eco-market is open on Kollwitzplatz, or Sunday when everyone sits outside being cool and eating breakfast all day. At night, there are still plenty of surprises here. Grungy clubs, gay cafés and ultra-cool and laid back unmarked restaurants that serve drinks and good homemade food for a voluntary contribution (you'll have to find those yourself).
Further afield
Districts mostly known for their restaurant and nightlife scene are Schöneberg, the centre of gay Berlin since the days of Christopher Isherwood?s Berlin Stories; Friedrichshain, filled with creatively tattered and tattooed students. Berlin has green spots galore, and after Tiergarten the most popular getaways are the Grünewald forest and lake Wannsee, in the southwest district of Zehlendorf.
Willfully poor and politically way left young locals may moan about "Touris" encroaching on their favourite Friedrichshain watering holes, but they themselves are probably originally from outside Berlin too, so don't worry. Tree-lined Simon-Dach-Strasse is full of spots to stuff yourself at inexpensive, all-you-can-eat buffets for Sunday brunch. It?s also bustling at any other time or day.
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