70
Edit: The new answer by Jack is quite excellent! However, unless doing something like that, then:
There was a lot of leftover debris while the Berlin Wall was being demolished. That, however, was a long time ago and parts of the Berlin Wall are now being intentionally maintained* as a historical monument. Therefore, removing pieces of it without permission ...
65
There is a hotel in Berlin that lets you chip away your own pieces of the wall and take them with you as part of a package deal. So there do still exist legal options for you to take your own piece home.
51
This contradicts travel etiquette more generally. (Barring some more specific local ethic saying it's okay, but that doesn't seem to exist here). The ethic is known as Leave No Trace (wikipedia) and is developed for respecting the outdoors, but in my opinion, perfectly well applies here.
Taking a pebble or stick or leaf when on "sacred" grounds, whether it ...
33
Having a car in Berlin is more hassle than a convenience, just because of the parking situation, and the money you spend on parking meters.
Driving in Berlin is also not exactly fun with the traffic congestion, or much faster than the bus or subway either.
Leave your car at home, save the money and then decide after 3 months if you really need a car in ...
31
Tickets get checked once in a while, usually by people with nondescript clothes waiting for passengers exiting the platforms or getting into the carriage and revealing themselves as ticket inspectors once the doors close and the train is on the move. Happened to me once or twice when working in Berlin and commuting by public transport for 6+ months a few ...
30
I am living in Berlin Moabit which is very close to Tegel Airport. Since Tegel and Moabit are not that interesting at the first sight (which is what you catch when running I think), you should take the TXL-Bus (public transport / 2.8€) running every 10 min. from the airport to the inner city. Then you should jump off at U-Bhf Turmstraße (subwaystation) and ...
24
To my experience, tickets get checked by people dressed as passengers, so you cannot notice them when entering the metro and change your path. When the doors close, they rapidly ask everyone to show their tickets.
I was checked twice on the same day during my 3-day visit in Berlin, which was quite a shock to me. There are no barriers to enter the metro ...
23
Won't using U1 be faster and easier?
Yes - but Google Maps doesn't know about it. Apparently the public transit data in Germany is based exclusively on a cooperation with Deutsche Bahn (which operates the S-Bahn). Other public transit (including regional trains not operated by DB) are not taken into account.
They may eventually expand their data base (...
20
Checkpoint Charlie is probably worth seeing anyway but it's very touristy and not quite a piece of the Berlin Wall: The checkpoint has been rebuilt and stands alone in the middle of the street. Incidentally, it became a symbol for several reasons but it was mostly notable as the only checkpoint for members of the allied forces. Other border crossings existed ...
20
Berlin has bikes available for rent through Deutsche Bahn. The prices for casual use are €3 per year subscription and then either €1 per half hour or €15 per day (pricelist in German).
For public transport, the day card is valid from the moment of validation until 3am the following morning. This is €6.90 for Berlin AB (the whole of the city) or €7.40 for ...
20
After the time-of-day on the stamp is a day-of-week in letters and a week number in numbers.
The 7-day ticket is stamped on Friday of week 45 in 2016.
The single ticket from Tegel is stamped on Thursday (in German: Donnerstag) of week 45 in 2016.
The stamp shows the date and time you validated the ticket, which is when the validity begins. The machines ...
18
For general communist architecture I would start at Alexander Platz and walk down the 'Karl-Marx-Allee' all the way to 'Frankfurter Tor' in Friedrichshain. There is nothing super special there, but the street was used for the big parades and still has a bit of an 'East German' feeling to it.
As for bunkers, there are still many around, some of them from the ...
18
Ok, JoErNanO explained the legal part, now as German I am able to explain the unofficial part.
It has nothing to do with a fine.
You are disobeying openly a rule while others are present. The amount of consistency is variable, people from Northrhine-Westphalia are more prudent to ignore lights than those from Bavaria.
If noone is present, no cars at night ...
18
In general, I would say, this is doable, however in the end it depends also a bit on your definition of "comfortable". So here are just a few points to consider:
There are different tickets for tourists (like the Berlin Welcome Card or the City Tour Card) which offer discounted rates (or even free entry) to many museums and other tourist attractions and ...
17
Wow. Interesting question, and one we don't get here very often.
As a Polish citizen, you are allowed to enter Germany and Poland and to cross the border as often as you like. The problem is proving your Polish citizenship since you have no passport. I think you are required to have a national ID card, too, I don't know how that applies to expats.
As a ...
17
Simple answer - you don't. Unless you're blind, as that's who they are designed for. And given that your question started with "I see ..." I'm going to presume that you are, indeed, not blind!
Their purpose is not to make the light turn green, but to allow a blind person to know when it has changed to green.
For the longer answer, refer to this blog post ...
16
1 You don’t need a car for most personal local transportation
I'm a resident of Berlin since birth (some 25–30 years ago) and I never owned a car. Imho the transportation system is perfectly sufficient under most circumstances. The exceptions are according to my experience:
You need to transport heavy or unwieldy objects on a regular basis.
You need to ...
16
Leave the car at home.
As you say, Berlin has "nearly perfect" public transportation coverage. If you find that you want a car for an errand or for a road trip, rent one. In addition to traditional car rental businesses, there are many short-term "car sharing" programs (similar to Zipcar in the US). Taking a taxi is another option.
15
I don't recall any peculiar rule. You are supposed to walk on the sidewalk and to cross streets only when the pedestrian sign is green (unlike the UK, if that's where you come from). You can receive a small fine for failing to do so. It's not as bad as Amsterdam but do beware of bike lanes and treat them like streets (look right and left before crossing, don'...
14
I've done this several times, renting a flat in Berlin for some weeks up to about a month. Over the years, my platforms of choice have been wg-gesucht.de and zwischenmiete.de. The first one of those had more offers than the second one when I last used it in December 2012. A lot of offers were available on both platforms.
On these platforms you find ...
14
1) There are three stops for ICE leaving Berlin in the direction of Leipzig: Berlin Hbf and Berlin Südkreuz. The third one is either Berlin-Spandau or Berlin-Gesundbrunnen. The fifth station in Berlin that is served by ICE trains is Berlin Ostbahnhof, but there are no services from there to Leipzig.
You can reach any of the four possible starting points ...
13
There is an express bus running from Tegel, called very appropriately TXL. It runs to Alexanderplatz (trip takes 25 min), and passes a few hundred meters from Stadtmitte at Unter den Linden. The closest stop would be Unter den Linden/Friedrichstraße. One ride costs 2.40 € for an adult. (The same ticket will be valid for 2 hours on U-Bahn or S-Bahn within ...
13
Via the webiste of the German Railways (bahn.de), it is possible to book a bus from Berlin to Krakow for 29 EUR, even for a departure on a (very) short notice (read: tomorrow). The price for a regular train ticket is 61 EUR. Eurolines will charge you about the same. The travel time by bus or train is 9 - 10 hours. By train you have to change once. The ...
13
You can find some good information on all the possible Berlin public transport tickets on their English language website here. They have a few different short time-period based tickets, which include various tourist discounts. The discounts may or may not be of interest.
Otherwise, you can get a day ticket (Tagesticket) for the AB zones for €6.90. That'll ...
13
You can find a detailed description of the stamp content on this page (in German).
The calendar week and last digit of year assumptions in the comments are correct. Your ticket was stamped 10:00 on the Sunday (So) of calendar week 15 (April 11th to 17th) in the year 2016 by ticket validator number 5 on U-Bahnhof (subway station) Schönleinstraße.
The weekly ...
13
I have been in Berlin for four weeks(!) in school summer holiday 2004 (age 18). It wasn't boring at all during that time, although I must admit that I spent some days in museums and at Wannsee Tegeler See, as well as at the "open doors" weekend of the federal government.
But still, Berlin has enough attractions to entirely fill your weekend - museums, ...
13
As the travel is in Germany, I would go to the German rail planner Bahn.de, which has the option to select 'all stations' for cities. (It is available in many languages, I have selected the English version here.)
When you enter the name of a city the site knows has several stations, it gives the name in all capital letters as well as in normal ...
12
Being used to German ample vacation times, 5 days seems awfully short to really see much along such a long route, and I'd therefore avoid going the extra distance to the Alps, unless you require your hikes to include spectacular alpine vistas - but if you're staying in Munich for a while, that's a different story.
The most direct route from Berlin to Munich ...
12
This is the official website where you can get all the informations you asked for (in english as well): http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/visits/index.jsp
Short summary:
There are no restrictions for non-german citizens.
You can participate in a guided tour and you can even watch a debate from the tribune of the reichstag for ~1 hour. You need a reservation ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
