Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Prenzlauer Berg
is strung out along several arterial roads that are well served by
public transport from Alexanderplatz or Hackescher Markt. From Alexanderplatz,
Greifswalder Strasse
heads northeast, passing close to
Volkspark Friedrichshain
, one
of the city's best parks and final resting place for victims of the 1848 revolution. From
here you pass the bland, GDR-era
Ernst-Thälmann-Park
, behind which lurks the
Zeiss
Planetarium
and the modest late-1920s model housing development,
Flamensiedlung
,
before reaching the tidy middle-class district of
Weissensee
, where you'll find the city's
largest
Jewish cemetery
.
Another arterial road to the west,
Schönhauser Allee
, runs
close to the former East-West border and is the main route to all the trendiest parts
of Prenzlauer Berg. his is the place to explore on foot, taking in sights such as the
Kulturbrauerei
and
Kollwitzplatz
, which was once another important area for Jews,
as a large nearby
cemetery
and still-functioning
synagogue
attest.
North of Prenzlauer Berg, the tidy bourgeois district of
Pankow
, once home
to much of the GDR's elite, offers few significant sights. But as Berlin's
northeasternmost borough before the city gives way to countryside, it has a sedate,
almost village-like atmosphere and some pleasant parks, and makes for an hour or
two's pleasant strolling.
GETTING AROUND
Public transport
The quickest way to explore Prenzlauer
Berg and around is by public transport from Alexanderplatz.
Tram #M4 travels up Greifswalder Strasse to Weissensee;
U-Bahn #2 heads to Senefelder Platz, which is an ideal place
to start a walking tour. The same line continues up to
U-Bahn Pankow, which lies a short walk from its main drag,
Breite Strasse. Tram #M1 offers a good option for getting
back to the centre, stopping at U-Bahn Eberswalder Strasse,
the district's central hub, en route to Hackescher Markt via
some of eastern Berlin's lesser-known back-streets.
8
Greifswalder Strasse and around
Greifswalder Strasse
more or less forms the dividing line between Prenzlauer Berg
and Friedrichshain. It still looks very neat with its freshly painted facades, and in
pre-
Wende
days tra
c came to a standstill along the side-streets a couple of times
a day as a convoy of black Citroëns and Volvos sped by, whisking high-ranking
government members (notably Erich Honecker himself ) from the Palast der Republik
(see p.54) to their homes in the lakeside town of Wandlitz north of Berlin. But behind
the immaculate facades, the
Hinterhöfe
of Greifswalder Strasse were just as run-down
as those in the back-streets.
Volkspark Friedrichshain
Just within the limits of the Friedrichshain district,
Volkspark Friedrichshain
is
one of the city's oldest and largest parks. At the western entrance to the park is the
Märchenbrunnen
(Fairytale Fountain), a neo-Baroque arcade and fountain with
statues of characters from Brothers Grimm stories. Intended as a gift to tenement-
dwelling workers, it was put up in 1913 at the instigation of Social Democratic
members of the city council, in direct contravention of the Kaiser's wishes. A few
hundred metres southeast of the Märchenbrunnen stands the
Gedenkstätte für
die Deutschen Interbrigadisten
, a monument to the German members of the
International Brigades who fought against the fascists in Spain in the Spanish
Civil War. Of the five thousand Germans (including many leading communists)
who went to Spain, only two thousand returned.
here's another monument to the east of here (just off Landsberger Allee), this
time to victims of an upheaval closer to home. he
Friedhof der Märzgefallenen
is
where many of the 183 Berliners killed by the soldiers of King Friedrich Wilhelm
IV during the revolution of March 1848 were buried, their interment attended by
eighty thousand of their fellow citizens. Only a few of the original gravestones
survive, but the dead of 1848 have been joined by 33 of those killed in the
