What are the sights everyone should try and see when visiting Berlin?

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The Tank

Checkpoint Charlie is a bit dull. It commemorates an important historical event but apart from the small museum there's not much to see.

The Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park is really impressive. It's enormous and fairly unique.

Go up the television tower. It's in Alexanderplatz and should be climbed on a clear day. If it's even a bit hazy don't bother.

The Reichstag dome is excellent. If you go up on a clear winter's evening the view over the city and straight up is superb, and it's free.

Take the bus route 100 from the Zoo to Alexanderplatz. It passes many of the central tourist sites.

Potsdammer Platz, which was a bombsite 10 years ago, is now an amazing and exciting place.
Nearby is the Holocaust Memorial. It's a strange forest of black slabs. Partly built over the Fuherbunker.

Westhaven S-Bahnhof (U7 north from the Zoo). Although it's not "remote" this is a very bleak and lonely station. Stand on the road bridge overlooking the railway lines, read the memorial scripts - and, well ... it's disconcerting. Not your usual tourist hot spot, but good for a spot of navel gazing.

The Teirgarten. Walk through it on a sunny day, but beware cyclists.

Visit the Technology Museum. As well as some superb locomotives, they have a collection of notes from the pre-war days of hyper-inflation. Impressive denominations.

All of the museums on Museum Island are worth a visit and so is the Natural History Museum in Invalidenstrasse. You have to pay an entrance charge but they're not overly dear.

The so-called World Clock in Alexanderplatz is a bit of a disapointment but you should have your photo taken with Marx and Engles in Marx-Engels Platz which is near the Rot Rathouse.

If you go in December there are about a dozen Christmas Markets to choose from. My favourate is Spandau.

julie travelcaster

Bus 100/200, from Bahnhof Zoo go past all the major sights. I just got back from Berlin, five days, and this was what I think is worthwhile

The Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag - but we did not wait in the very long and slow line to climb the dome of the Reichstag.

The Holocaust Memorial, the Jewish Museum, and the Topography of Terrors exhibit on Wilhelmstrasse is great. They now have a sign on the corner where Hitler's bunker used to be, which is a couple blocks south of the Holocaust Memorial.

The Wall Memorial, near Nordbahnhof, is great - I cannot recommend it enough at this point. We expected very little, and it was wonderful.

Wander around Alexanderplatz - that is a lot of fun, though in my opinion, the Nicholaiviertel is not really very fantastic.

Take a day trip to Potsdam and see Schloss Sansouci if you like Palaces. Charlottenburg is also very nice, and closer in.

If you like art, particularly ancient art and architecture, the Pergamon and Alte Museum are definitely worth seeing.

If you like churches, visit the Dom and the Marienkirche.

And stop by Potsdammer Platz, preferably after the Wall Memorial, where you can see what it looked like only about 20 years ago. (heck, what it looked like in 2001!)

Hope that helps.

El SamO

checkpoint charlie is worth a visit- the centre of tensions in europe during the cold war, and also the berlin wall is worth seeing.
The brandenburg gate is also worth seeing, its very impressive

Jana Z

To elaborate on Julia's reply:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Berlin#See
Look at the Wikitravel website - they list the main sights and link to them so you can check their opening hours etc.

Some practical tips:

Bundestag/Reichstag - a wonderful view of the city, can't be missed. I go there whenever I am in Berlin. The entry is free but the security check is thorough and the lift small. So you are in for a long line if you arrive along with other tourists. I think it pays to get up early and to be there at 7.30 am. They open at 8 am and if you arrive at 7.30, you are likely to be in the first group they admit.

Transport - get one of the card for tourists. http://www.bvg.de/index.php/en/Bvg/Index/folder/710/name/For+Visitors
They do not pay on their own as you could buy several 24 hours tickets at the same price (around 20 EUR for three days) but they entitle you to discounts in museums etc. I am now planning my own trip to Berlin, and the discounts at the sights I plan to visit amount to almost 15 EUR per person. :)

For free: If you want to visit any museum owned by the state, Thursday evening is a good time as it is for free 4 hours before closing. They are mostly art and ethnology museums: http://www.smb.museum/smb/sammlungen/index.php?lang=en&p=3&n=1

Not to be missed: I am a history buff so here's what I'd really want to see.
Related to World War II and the Jewish history of the town: Topography of Terror, Jewish Museum, Holocaust Memorial, House of the Wannsee Conference

Related to DDR and the Wall: Stasi Museum (the secret police of the Communist regime, though I liked the museum in Leipzig more), DDR Museum, Checkpoint Charlie (long queues as well, I'd be there before 10 am when they open), BernauerstraÃŸe (Wall Memorial), East Side Gallery (a large part of the wall still standing), if you have time, go to the eastern part of the city to see the monstrous socialist architecture

History of the city and of Germany in general: Deutsches Historisches Museum, The Story of Berlin

sportsfan4eva

if you want to see the reichstag, make a reservation. otherwise the line is very long and not worth it.

go to potsdam, very pretty there are a lot of lakes

Sachsenhausen
Brandenburger Tor
jewish monument: afterwards go to the Arkaden mall for ice cream on the second floor there is a big ice cream cafe

Orla C

It's been 15 years since I was in Berlin, and I think the city has changed a lot. I have heard that Unter den Linden is a marvellous walk.

Hallie E

I would check out the East Side Gallery to see some remnants of the Berlin Wall, and be sure to visit the Hamburger Bahnhof- it's an amazing modern art museum inside of an old train station, and contains some stunning works.

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