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I will have a very early flight from Berlin.

I was therefore considering going directly to the airport and wait for the flight skipping the night in an hotel. In any case I would still like to have dinner in the city and maybe go to some music concert or so and enjoy Berlin atmosphere by night.

Where can I leave my luggage, in a place that I can pick it late at night, and conveniently located to proceed from there to Schönefeld airport?

I still don't have any plans yet, so it's hard to answer to things like "where are you going to have dinner" or "where is the concert". At this moment I can adapt to the answers as long as the location for the luggage is central to some restaurant/night life/concerts hall and from there easy to reach the airport.

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  • IIRC The main stations have left luggage, did you try looking at the DB website to see the opening hours? – Gagravarr Oct 19 '15 at 12:26
  • Most important: How big is your luggage? This is relevant to determine if it fits into the lockers at the main train stations. – DCTLib Oct 19 '15 at 12:28
  • @DCTLib The luggage is small. The equivalent to 2 hand-luggage. – nsn Oct 19 '15 at 12:30
  • @Gagravarr I googled for it. I found a couple of lockers, some outside the stations. They seem to be automated, but it's not clear at all if the area is closed at night or not. – nsn Oct 19 '15 at 12:34
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    Then store your luggage at Südkreuz station (lockers are indoors, go to exit "Hildgard Knef Platz", the lockers are to the right of the escalators). Then you can pick up your luggage at night and use the S45 train to Schönefeld (takes about 40 minutes). Südkreuz is a pretty good hub if you want to go to the city, the S42 train goes to Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain every 10 minutes or so. – Eike Pierstorff Oct 19 '15 at 20:42
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To use the lockers in a train station is a good idea, however if your flight is in Schönefeld you should use the lockers at Südkreuz station. As in all stations the cost is 4 Euros for a small locker, 6 Euros for a large locker (per 24 hours).

(BTW. if this is a stopover and you also arrive at SFX, then Schönefeld Airport has lockers, so the simplest option would be to leave your luggage there.)

The lockers as Südkreuz are located at the exit Hildegard-Knef-Platz. They are inside the building, and the police station inside the station is just around the corner, so your luggage should be pretty safe (take care not to leave any luggage unattended in the open or it will be removed and destroyed).

Südkreuz is also a good option because it is a traffic hub.

It's probably worth buying a "Tageskarte Berlin ABC" (day ticket for all fare zones) at 7.5 Euro (valid until 3.00 am of the next day).

From Südkreuz you can either use the S42 train (going to Ostkreuz). This will take you to the districts of Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg (more or less the "party districts" of Berlin). The S42 is part of the "Ring", the line that goes in circles around the inner city (if you imagine a clock face with the most northern station (Gesundbrunnen) at 12 o'clock the S42 goes counter-clockwise and the S41 train goes clockwise. A full circle takes more than an hour and the view is not worth it, so try to catch the right direction).

However the "Ring" touches Kreuzberg (probably the most famous of Berlin's districts) only at the periphery, if you want to go there you might want to get off the S42 at Hermannstrasse and proceed with the tube U8 to Kottbusser Tor, right in the middle of Kreuzberg.

At Südkeuz you can also take the S2 train going to Friedrichstrasse. If you want to see a few sights you get get off at Potsdamer Platz.

Potsdamer Platz itself is more family-oriented entertainment - shopping malls, restaurants, cinemas, the film museum, waxworks and Legoland. But you can proceed by foot along the "Kulturforum" (if you interested in architecture; the "Philharmonie", the most famous Berlin concert hall, is an interesting albeit not beautiful sight), stroll by the Holocaust Memorial until you arrive at the parliament building (the former Reichstag). From there you can stroll down the avenue Unter den Linden to Friedrichstrasse and return with the S2 to Südkreuz.

Südkreuz station is located in the Schöneberg district, so you could also explore that. The area around the station is only just being developed, there is not much to see yet. You'd have to take the 204 bus to Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz (the day ticket is good for buses too).

For a selection of bars and cafes you can enter Crellestrasse just right the corner of Kaiser Wilhelm-Platz, or ask for Akazienstrasse (Akazienstrasse and the streets that branch off have a lot of bars, restaurants, clubs etc). Schöneberg has also a vivid gay scene, if you specifically interested in / specifically want to avoid this you might want to go to / avoid Bülowstrasse and surroundings.

From Südkreuz station the S45 will bring you to Schönefeld Airport (goes every 30 minutes). However the last direct connection is about at 22.45, which is probably too early for you - there are a few other options (S42 to Treptower Park, then change to S9 to Schönefeld), but past midnight you will probably have to go by bus. S45 resumes operations at about 4.45 am.

Since you were talking about skipping the night at a hotel, it would be one convenient solution for you to look for a room in Schöneberg (not many hotels, but a lot of B&Bs and the like) near Südkreuz and explore the city from there.

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  • Good answer. A super minor detail, but I would just like to clarify that it is not the "former Reichstag", the building is still called Reichstag (although it is officially named Reichtagsgebäude, but everyone I ever met shortens it to Reichtstag). Of course, inside the building indeed the Reichstag does not assemble any more, but the Bundestag instead. – dirkk Apr 12 '17 at 8:31
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Probably the most convenient location for storing your luggage is at one of the major train stations. The main train station of Berlin (called "Berlin Hbf" or "Berlin Hauptbahnhof") has luggage lockers that should be accessible 24/7. According to this page, the luggage lockers cost 4€ (small) or 6€ (large) per day.

This map shows where the lockers are located - in the legend, search for the work "Schließfach" (which means locker).

There does not seem to be official information about the possible luggage sizes on the web. This page states the information for the main train station of Munich, which should have the same standard locker model used in other train statation. According to that page, small lockers have size 28x42x76 cm, while large ones have 47x61x91 cm. The latter is definitely enough for two small hand luggages. The lockers are constructed such that you pay when closing the locker - so you can check if a smaller one fits before paying for it. Note that you need 1- and 2-Euro coins for operating the locker.

If you suspect that the lockers are not accessible 24/7 (which would be very surprising given that the train station is open all day), then ask someone at the DB Information desk to confirm this. According to this page, the desk is staffed 24/7. They should also be able to give you hints on how to change money into the necessary types of coins if you don't have them.

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  • I don't know if they are open or not. I read that the lockers are outside the station for security reasons. But that creates security problems for the lockers themselves. I assumed they could be closed during night or so. But I don't know. – nsn Oct 19 '15 at 12:56
  • Well, they seem to be located at the entrace of the parking garage next to the station, which is also open 24/7 (source: contipark.de/find-parking/berlin-tiefgarage-hauptbahnhof) – DCTLib Oct 19 '15 at 13:05
  • The Seat61 page on luggage storage has details on Berlin Hbf facilities – Gagravarr Oct 19 '15 at 13:34
  • The lockers are within the station. Here is a plan that also show the lockers (look at the right side of the level that's labeled "1. Obergeschoss", lockers are next to the escalators). – Eike Pierstorff Oct 19 '15 at 19:02
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On Berlin Hauptbahnhof, there are 3 Parking levels with lockers, -1 to -3. The first one that anyone would try, is -1, which only has "short-term" storage, charging you for every 2 hours. There is no sign anywhere indicating that on -3 (maybe -2 too, didn't check) there are long-term storage spaces that charge you per day.

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Ant, one of the co-founders of Stasher.com here. We've got a bunch of 24/7 listings which may be able to help in a situation like this, check it out here:

https://stasher.com/search?search=Berlin&coordinates=52.504043%2C13.393236

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