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Brandenburg Gate in Berlin
Berlin has recently become one of the most visited European cities by Spaniards.
Moreover, it is a very suitable destination for a trip taking advantage of a bridge since you will find many attractions in the capital of Germany.
If you are preparing for your first trip to Berlin, these tips will be helpful in your sightseeing visit, allowing you to have a first vision of what you will find.
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Reichstag in Berlin
What is Berlin like today?
Looking ahead to your visit, I can tell you in advance that Berlin is a vast city.
It is the largest city in Europe, surpassing cities like London and Paris, although, with its 3.4 million inhabitants, it has a much lower population density, which you will appreciate on your tourist days.
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Alexanderplatz in Berlin
berlin airports
When you fly to Berlin, you still have two possible airports to arrive at.
Tegel airport, located in the old western part of the city, is close to the city centre, just 6 kilometres away (about 15 euros if you prefer to go by taxi).
Schoenfeld airport is further away, outside the city centre, about 18 kilometres away, and its inauguration has suffered successive delays in recent years, so we are still awaiting its final start-up.
The Berlin airport will be renamed the Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt airport and become the only option to fly to the German capital as the Tegel above airport will be closed.
For your trip, you will indeed find attractive the option of pre-booking transfers between the airport and the centre of Berlin.
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Tram in Berlin
And of course, searching booking.com for your hotel in Berlin will be helpful.
How to get around Berlin by public transport
Due to the great extension that I have mentioned that the German capital has, you have to take into account that when visiting Berlin, it is going to be essential that you use public transport.
Specifically, the not very new metro lines, buses and trams; You can only find the latter in the area of influence of what was the former Democratic Republic of the GDR.
In all cities, formulas or vouchers usually allow you to save when using urban transport.
In the case of Berlin, if you go in a group of family or friends of up to five people, I advise you to buy the one-day transport card for a small group.
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Tourist bus in Berlin
Tourist card with discounts in Berlin
Another alternative is tourist cards, such as the Berlin Welcome Card, which allows unlimited use of public transport and access to Berlin's leading museums and attractions at a discount.
For its part, the Berlin Pass card to visit more than 60 attractions and museums in the city has the option of transportation.
Sightseeing in Berlin by bike
Now, you can also consider getting to know Berlin by bike, at least during part of your visit.
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Bike rental in Berlin
As a curiosity, I will tell you that in Berlin there are 3.5 million bicycles and, on the other hand, only 1.2 million cars.
When you visit it, you will see that it is a city designed and taken over by bicycles.
The price of renting a bicycle in Berlin for a day ranges between 10 and 12 euros, and many visitors choose this means of transport to get around the most touristic areas of the city.
If you prefer, you also have the option of signing up for a one-day tour of Berlin by bicycle, with the company of a guide in Spanish and lasting four hours.
What to see and do on the sightseeing tour in Berlin
Your tourist visit to Berlin should focus on four thematic axes.
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Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin
Visit monuments of Imperial Berlin
On the one hand, Berlin was the capital of the German empire of the Hohenzollern dynasty from the beginning of the 18th century until its fall at the beginning of the First World War.
In this regard, the Charlottenburg Palace is one of the essential visits you must make, and during it, you will be able to see a sample of the great importance that this empire had.
You should complete the visit with a walk through the extensive gardens of Charlottenburg, with French-style areas and a later extension of English gardens.
Visit Berlin of Nazi Germany
Then, the subsequent Berlin was the capital of Nazi Germany, with numerous memorials located in different parts of the city, especially those dedicated to the Jewish people.
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Wall painting on the Wall East Side Gallery in Berlin Visit the former Berlin Wall |
The Wall that separated the east and west of the city from 1961 to November 9, 1989, should be another of the protagonists of your visit, with highlights such as Checkpoint Charlie or the East Side Gallery.
Checkpoint Charlie is one of the most photographed places in the German capital today.
It is the emulation of one of the control booths that were used to pass from one side of the Wall to the other, and it is located on the site where one of the most used border crossings in the city used to be.
For its part, the name of the East Side Gallery is the most extended section of the few remains of the Berlin Wall, which became an art gallery with more than one hundred wall paintings after reunification.
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Ishtar Gate of Babylon at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin Visit museums in BerlinAnd finally, Berlin is the capital of museums, which is most evident in the so-called Museum Island, an area declared a World Heritage Site. They say that Berlin is home to 170 museums, but if you are not very fond of spending time on your trip visiting these cultural institutions, in any case, you should write down an essential visit, the Pergamon Museum. It is the most visited museum in the city, and there you can see great works of antiquity, such as the Ishtar Gate of Babylon or the Pergamon Altar, although it is currently undergoing a major remodelling and expansion process that will end in 2025. On the same island, you have other outstanding options, such as the Bode Museum ( Bode-Museum ), with treasures of Byzantine art, or the New Museum (Neues Museum), which houses the Bust of Nefertiti.  |
If you plan to visit at least two of these museums, you may want to buy a combined ticket for the museums on Museum Island.
It will already be cheaper than buying tickets for each one.
What to do and visit in Berlin in three days
brandenburg gate
Next to it, you can see the seat of the German Parliament and the Reichstag, and you can go through the famous and iconic Brandenburg Gate.
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Brandenburg Gate in Berlin Monuments in BebelplaztThen you will continue along Unter Der Linden avenue until you reach the enormous space of Alexanderplatz, and on the way to this grand square, you should not miss the Bebelplazt monument commemorating the Burning of Books in 1933. In this place, you can also see the building of the Catholic cathedral of Saint Hedwig, which will be one of the surprises that the city of Berlin will bring you. The most important church in the German capital is the one known as the Berliner Dom, which is the Protestant cathedral. But not far away, you can see a church with an unusual circular plan, which will remind you of the Pantheon of Agrippa in Rome to a certain extent.  |
alexanderplatz
Alexanderplatz was the nerve centre of the former East Berlin, and there you will find monuments such as the Marienkirche church, the oldest in the city, the building known as the Red Town Hall, or the great Neptune Fountain.
In this extraordinary enclave in the centre of Berlin, you should also visit the aforementioned Protestant cathedral Berliner Dom, from where you can now access the area of the previous Museum Island.
medieval district of berlin
Near Alexanderplatz you find one of the essential visits in Berlin is the old medieval district of San Nicolás .
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Berliner Dom protestant cathedral in Berlin In reality, you will not see historical buildings, but it is a totally reconstructed area in the place where in medieval times, the population that gave rise to the current city of Berlin was located. This old medieval neighbourhood suffered almost total devastation due to the bombing of the Second World War. Did you know that all the buildings in the San Nicolás neighbourhood were rebuilt in the 1980s following the architectural style of the only house whose walls remained standing? Berlin neighborhoods |
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Old medieval quarter of St. Nicholas in Berlin Specifically, the modern Potsdamer Platz square or what is known as the Jewish Quarter or the Farm Quarter, near Alexanderplatz. And if you want to know a trendy area in today's Berlin, visit the Kreuzberg Turkish Quarter. Of course, in the previous Jewish Quarter, you will no longer be able to visit Tacheles, an alternative art squat that became so popular among Berlin tourists and was closed in September 2012. On the other hand, if you can enjoy the significant commercial and leisure atmosphere of this neighbourhood, specifically in the Hackesche Hofe courtyards.  |
Rent a Trabant in Berlin
On your visit to Berlin, it will surely catch your eye that some aspects of everyday life in the former East Berlin have become tourist icons.
That is the case of the cars of the old East German brand, the Trabant, which are rented so that you can live the experience of driving them on your tour of the city, of which you can even visit a museum.
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Trabant Museum in Berlin Or also the old and curious traffic lights of East Berlin, which have not only been preserved but have continued to be installed with the striking icons used in the sunlight. |
City bus sightseeing tour
In Berlin, you also have the typical double-decker panoramic buses for the tourist visit to the city.
But you have another much cheaper alternative, also by double-decker bus, to visit most tourist places in the city.
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Mural in a corner of the former East Berlin If you use the urban bus lines 100 or 200, either with your transport card or for the price of a ticket, you will cover the entire tourist area of Berlin. My advice is to see if any of the two lines pass through the area where you have your hotel. If so, "you will kill two birds with one stone" = transfer to the tourist area + sightseeing tour by double-decker bus. Tours in Spanish in BerlinLooking ahead to your trip to the German capital, you can consider the possibility of starting the first day with a guided tour of Berlin in Spanish. |
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Cruise on the river Spree in Berlin I have had the opportunity to do so on recent trips to various cities, such as Heidelberg, Toledo, Malaga or Berlin itself, Starting with a guided tour has the advantage of getting an overview of a city in three to four hours, allowing you to plan the most exciting visits.  And if you have enough time on your trip, you may also find it interesting to sign up for an excursion around Berlin, such as the Potsdam tour in Spanish or the Sachsenhausen concentration camp tour in Spanish. |
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