Berlin in one day from the ship: three routes for four to five hours

On a typical port day from Warnemünde you’ll have four to five hours in Berlin. That’s enough to see a lot, if you don’t try to see everything. Pick one route.

Before you go: check Berlin Is Closed for museums and landmarks shut for renovation on your date.

Route 1: The highlights (first visit)

Mostly on foot in the centre, about 4–5 hours with a quick lunch.

1. The Reichstag and the government quarter by the Spree. The dome needs advance registration; on a port day, see it from outside.
2. The Brandenburg Gate, walking through from the Tiergarten side to Pariser Platz.
3. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: walk into the field of concrete stelae; the underground information centre adds depth if you have time.
4. The site of Hitler’s bunker, now an unremarkable car park with an information board, which is the point.
5. Checkpoint Charlie, then the surviving stretch of the Wall beside the Topography of Terror.
6. Gendarmenmarkt and Bebelplatz, site of the Nazi book burning of 10 May 1933.
7. Along Unter den Linden to Museum Island and Berlin Cathedral.

Route 2: The Wall and the Cold War

S-Bahn and short walks, about 4–5 hours.

1. Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Strasse: the best place to understand how the border actually worked, with a preserved section of the death strip and a viewing tower. Many of the escapes and deaths at the Wall happened along this street.
2. Palace of Tears (Tränenpalast) at Friedrichstrasse station: the free museum in the old border-crossing hall where East and West Berliners said goodbye.
3. Checkpoint Charlie and the outdoor exhibition around it.
4. East Side Gallery: the longest surviving stretch of the Wall, painted by artists in 1990.

Want to know where the rest went? Pieces of the Wall now stand on every continent: Where Is The Wall maps them.

Route 3: The Third Reich and 1945

On foot in the centre, about 4–5 hours.

1. The Reichstag: the fire of February 1933, and the Soviet flag on its roof in 1945. How democracy was dismantled in the first hundred days is told day by day in Democracy Destroyed.
2. The former Reich Air Ministry on Wilhelmstrasse, one of the few large Nazi government buildings still standing.
3. Topography of Terror: the free documentation centre on the site of the Gestapo and SS headquarters.
4. The site of Hitler’s bunker and the old Wilhelmstrasse government quarter.
5. Bebelplatz: the book burning of 10 May 1933.
6. The Soviet War Memorial in the Tiergarten, built in 1945 near the Reichstag.

The last battle for the city, from the Oder to the Reichstag, is reconstructed day by day at Battle of Berlin 1945.

With an extra hour or two: the memorial at Track 17, Grunewald station, from which thousands of Berlin’s Jews were deported.

Doing it with a guide

A guide makes four to five hours go much further: no navigating, no queues for directions, and the story connecting the places. Our private excursion from Warnemünde can follow any of these routes.