Berlin Tourist Activities

The city of Berlin has three airports, namely Tegel, Schönefeld and Tempelhof. Berlin Tegel Airport is the German capital’s busiest aviation hub and in 2010 it served some 15 million passengers for international and domestic flight connections.

From June 2012 onwards all domestic and international flights will be handled by Berlin Schönefeld and in honour of former Chancellor Wilhelm Brandt the airport will be renamed as Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport, acting as a permanent reminder of Germany’s reunification.

Berlin Tegel Airport has four terminal buildings. The hexagonal Terminal A building serves as the main arrival and departure area for all major carriers. Passengers arriving at Berlin Tegel Airport or departing from Berlin Tegel Airport should know there are no direct train or underground services connecting Berlin’s airport with the city. There are excellent bus connections, however, and bus line number 128 takes passengers directly into the city.

Berlin tourist attractions rank as among the best in the world. With no fewer than 170 museums and art galleries alone, Berlin is a haven for art lovers and hobby historians. One of the best Berlin tourist attractions is the Museum Island (Museums Insel, www.smb.museum), an island in the heart of the city housing numerous museums filled with some of the world’s greatest art treasures. Visitors should begin with the Pergamon Museum. It has 3 sections, the Collection of Classical Antiquities, the Museum of Near Eastern Antiquities and the Museum of Islamic Art. Modern exhibits are displayed at the Old National Gallery, showcasing 19th century art by Caspar David Friedrich, Degas, Monet and Cezanne among others.

Berlin tourist attractions are varied, if nothing else! Purchasing a Berlin Welcome Card at the Tourist Office allows visitors discounted entry into some 160 venues (http://www.visitberlin.de/en and http://www.berlin-tourism.de for further info). The Aquadom and Sea Life Berlin Centre is home to some 5,000 marine animals from the local River Spree to bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, here aquatic life forms are shown in as near their natural habitat as is possible in an aquarium. Visitors can travel in a glass elevator through one million litres of saltwater in the largest freestanding aquarium in the world to get a feel for what oceanic life is really like.

Another popular Berlin tourist attraction is the Chamber of Horror (www.gruselkabinett.de), an exhibition housed in Berlin’s only remaining WWII open air-raid shelter. Visitors can walk through the bunkers and enjoy the re-enactments of historical medical scenes in all their spine-tingling authenticity!

Shoppers will fall in love with Berlin tourist attraction number one, the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens/ literally the department store of the West). One of the largest department stores in the world, the KaDeWe’s gourmet food halls are famous for their sheer inexhaustible number of delicatessens from around the globe.

For a little of Marlene Dietrich’s Hollywood glamour visitors should travel to Berlin’s UFA-Fabrik, the former film studios in Tempelhof (underground train U6). The erstwhile pride of Germany’s film industry, the former film studios are now a culture and nightlife complex of buildings with cinemas, a theatre and a circus school.

Other Berlin tourist attractions are the parks and the zoo. Berlin’s Zoo (Berlin Tierpark) is Europe’s largest zoo, covering more than 160 hectares. The zoo is home to 7,800 animals representing some 900 species from across the globe. Visitors will find the Hummingbird-Crocodile house, the Tropical Hall and the Vari Forest especially exciting with inquisitive lemurs taking an interest in tourists walking through the forest (http://www.tierpark-berlin.de).

Among the more relaxing Berlin tourist attractions the city has to offer are its many parks. Marzahn’s Recreational Park, (www.gaerten-der-welt.de) is home to landscaped garden designs from around the world; noteworthy are the Chinese, Japanese, Bali and Korean gardens.

From the extraordinary aviation history at Berlin Tegel Airport involving the mercy flights by American and Allied planes delivering essential food during the Berlin Blockade to the ancient Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum, from border post Checkpoint Charlie to Alexanderplatz, from the remnants of the Berlin Wall to the Brandenburg Gate, the city of Berlin never ceases to amaze, dazzle and delight tourists from around the world.