Tag Archives: Berlin

Play: A Perfect Day in Berlin

24 Aug

Welcome to Berlin, the hipster capital of the universe. It’s just like Brooklyn, except it’s cheaper, and there are slightly less Americans. If you planning a visit, don heavy-framed glasses and get your business cards printed up. The more slashes after your name, the better. Try: “writer/traveler/curator/designer/dreamer” for starters.

BREAKFAST: that‘s Frühstück to you. Take yours hale & hearty over Der Spiegel at the classic Cafe Einstein (pictured) or Literature House. (Thanks to travel writer Swissing Around for this brilliant breakfast tip!)

MEMORIAL: The memorial dedicated to the Murdered Jews of Europe by Peter Eisenmann is sobering, graphic and disorientating. During our visit we observed parents beninly looking on as their young children ran giggling through the ‘maze’; and a blonde being told off for skipping merrily between the blocks. #WhatWereTheyThinking? For details check the website.

ICH LIEBE GREEN: If the weather is good, hit one of Berlin‘s many green spaces that sprout wild and luscious throughout the city. Lustgarten is right in the middle of tourist mayhem, but we prefer biking through the lovely Tiergarten (it also welcomes sun-loving nudists!)…or take a stroll along the Spree…

ART ZONE: Looking into the window of a Mitte art gallery a middle-aged American guy enthuses, “This is my kind of art” at a knitted sculpture of Superman crashed into a wall… Get started with a chilled art crawl and coffee hop of the galleries in Mitte… Check out the latest shows on SugarHigh or create a hit-list with this gallery hit-list by BangBangBerlin. The free app by the Collecionist Art Guide is also pretty decent.

At the Barn Cafe all the waiters had Antipodean accents. They do a mean cup of coffee and some of the best sandwiches we’ve eaten. Ever. Anywhere. Too bad we didn’t have room for cake.

EAST SIDE GALLERY: A crush of elderly tourists obstruct a mural of Reagan and Gorbachev in a passionate embrace. Blocking my view: a cane wielding gent in his late 70’s wearing a New York Yankees cap, I note the blue veins running down the back of his elderly ears. The longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall is one of those ‘must-do’s. Hire a bike – it‘s more fun that way.

COFFEE: In Bonanza Coffee Heroes a near religious calm prevails as two hipsters work their magic over the Synesso Cyncra coffee machine; like priests in a pulpit or DJs at the deck. Note, seating is limited to outdoor benches and perching on bags of coffee beans. Great for a perk-me-up or refresher after a trip to Sunday‘s Maur Park flea market where gems spotted include vintage crockery sets and a child’s pair of green suede lederhosen.

MUSEUM: “I didn’t quite catch that.” Eerie, sad, kitsch and surreal; re-live the Lives of Others at the slightly-down-at-heel Stasi Museum where unfortunate East German citizens previously found themselves “detained for the clarification of facts”. An ominous charge if we ever heard one. Displays range from watch-operated spy cameras to bugged bird-houses and human ‘smell samples’ of potential dissidents. Get the background by reading Anna Fundar’s hypnotic and excellent Stasiland.

DINNER: We can’t decide what’s nicer, Da Baffi, a cheap, cute-as-a-button Italian restaurant in Wedding or old school elegance at Renger Patzch in Schoenberg. (We road tested these excellent tips thanks to Foodie in Berlin, who also suggested HBC in Mitte for the atmosphere – we’d put it on the hit-list for drinks and hi-jinx. ) Other ideas include the Shy Chef, eating dinner with strangers at a secret supper club, or pop-up, food events staged by the likes of the Agora Collective.

DRINKING: In the dimly-lit Hotel Bar a young woman sits on the floor beside me and starts eating an enormous Lebanese cucumber she pulls from her bag. Meanwhile a gently smiling bartender carefully snuffs and replaces the candles and adjusts a humble glass jars of garden flowers on my table. This innocuous watering hole in Kreuzberg hides an cheerful interior that can border on the frenzied. Hipster crowd, cheap drinks, great music,…. Low-Fi buzz meets gemütlichkeit. The owners also offerrooms (elsewhere) that are available for rent on request according to an ephemeral selection process.

Welcome to Berlin: echoing a cabaret act from the 20′s, enjoy Berliner Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester, he and his dancing girls await you…

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Michelberger: Hipster Hotel in Berlin

4 Jul

Our drawing of our Loft Room on the 2nd floor at the Michelberger Hotel. For the last couple of years we have been drawing our favourite hotel rooms, and we now have a nice collection of Moleskin Japanese albums… (Image by HWL)

The Michelberger Hotel in Berlin has been on our hipster hotel hit list for a few years now. Finally, we had the chance to go! A Leonard Cohen soundtrack and retro glasses of well-priced prosecco in the hotel’s candle-lit bar kicked-off the perfect sojourn in Berlin…

Wise words in the lobby of the Michelberger Hotel, Berlin. (Image by HWL)

The neighbourhood: Looking on a tourist map of Berlin you feel like the Michelberger might be a little bit out-of-the-way – but not at all. The location offers all the transport links, from trains to bike paths, to get you into the heart of the action (naked sun-bathing in the Tiergarten, jostling it out with the tourists at Brandenburg Gate, strolling the bijou boutiques in Mitte or tagging  hapless passers-by according to your tastes). But more importantly in Berlin it’s the suburbs where the good stuff is happening – so if you want to eat, drink and make merry, you’re in close proximity to the emerging areas of Kreuzberg and Neukölln. Note that East Side Gallery – the largest remaining painted stretch of the Berlin Wall is just around the corner.

The Clever One – an example of the Luxe room category at the Michelberger Hotel – has a saucy librarian aesthetic. Now to take off those heavy frames and shake-out that hair.

The Hotel: The Michelberger weds a bohemian aesthetic and happening vibe with a friendly welcome (OK, so it’s less of a wedding duo and more of a love triangle).  It seems to have taken the best of those 20-something travelling experiences (camaraderie, sociable communal areas, friendly service) and combined them with the best of hotel living – clean rooms, fresh linen and a more sophisticated design aesthetic. The cool bar area is great at any time of the day – if you find yourself knackered at the end of a big day in Berlin and can’t convince your feet to take you back out over the threshold, there’s no shame in spending a night in. (Well, only a little bit.)

Boomshakalakaboom: the exterior of the Michelberger Hotel in Berlin (Image by HWL)

What we loved: The creative atmosphere, the playful design aesthetic, the friendliness of the staff. Late check-outs on request for night performers such as burlesque dancers/DJs/musos/ and other creative slash types. While we didn’t take advantage of them we thought the free daily activities (eg: Sunday outing to the Mauerpark Flea Market) were a nice touch for travellers in the mood for company and hassle-free entertainment.

Paper lantern: while you can start the day in the breakfast room, we preferred a quiet coffee and pastry in the cafe/bar area…a very chilled way to wake up. (Image by HWL)

Minuses/Room to improve: Rooms on the first floor may be exposed to some bar noise; some room categories (Loft, Band) have mezzanine sleeping areas accessed by precarious and narrow staircases – not recommended for the non-mobile, the non-thin or if you’re planning to get drunk a lot. (In the latter case, we recommend crashing out on the day bed on the ground floor.) Mezzanine rooms are warm and could get rather hot in summer – if you of the sensitive ilk, pack ear-plugs so you can sleep with the windows open without being woken by traffic and assorted merry pranksters of the night. While the cleaning staff get our full sympathy (imagine lugging cleaning implements up those teeny stairs) some rooms could do with a little more maintenance – the odd scuff mark removed etc – to keep things looking sharp.

Bunking down with the roadies in one of the big band rooms. Both these and Loft Rooms feature mezzanines.

Tips: Ask for a room on the third or second floor for more light, better views, and more distance from the bar/street noise. Those facing the main road will get the sun in the morning. Transport enthusiasts and urban planners will enjoy watching the stream and interaction of pedestrians, cyclists, tramways, the U-Bahn and S-Bahn  lines and street traffic. The hotel has two excellent maps at reception featuring their personal guide to the city – one of cultural sites; one of bars and restaurants. We recommend you pick one up.

Hello sunshine: we advocate a Loft Room with a window desk for anyone with a transport spotting related compulsion. (Image by HWL)

Bookings: for bookings contact the Michelberger Hotel.

Lullaby?: That’s too easy. Fall asleep to the Leonard Cohen classic…

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Wild Graffiti: Grrr in Berlin

13 Jun

The bear is a symbol of Berlin but you’d be lucky to spot one that wasn’t behind bars – by which we mean the Berlin zoo. Local arts collective Neo-Zoon uses discarded fur coats to create eye-catching silhouettes of European animals which they then plaster around the city. Their ‘wild graffiti’ offers a critique of the urban environment while noting an all too predictable absence. Two masked, female street artists take us through the process in Germany’s cultural capital. Enjoy! (Grrrr!)

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