Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the lock. To drop it off you can leave it on any street
corner then ring up for a code to lock the bike and
leave its location as a recorded message. This can all
also be done using the Call-a-bike smartphone app.
you'll be able to pick up the locally available
cable
channels
(more than twenty of them, including
MTV and BBC World).
Radio
The media
English is the second language in Berlin,
so you won't have a problem finding a
good ange of English-language
newspapers and magazines and - with a
little searching - programmes on the TV
and radio. You will also find a number of
good listings magazines (see p.33) for
what's-on information.
Berlin's radio output is reasonable, and you can find
good things on the dial. The only
English-speaking
radio
stations are the BBC World Service (90.2FM) and
NPR Berlin (104.1FM) with non-commercial news, talk
and entertainment programmes. For
talk
radio in
German try sophisticated Radio Eins (95.8FM). The
best
local music
stations, depending on your taste,
are Fritz Radio (102.6FM), with some decent dance
and hip hop, and Star FM (87.9FM), with its diet of
American rock. For indie music try Flux FM (100.6FM).
Best of the classical music stations is Klassik Radio
(101.3FM); Jazz Radio (106.8FM) offers jazz and blues.
Newspapers
The best place to look for
British and US
news papers
is at the newsagents in the main train
stations: Bahnhof Zoo, Hauptbahnhof, Alexanderplatz,
Friedrichstrasse and th
e
Ostbahnhof.
Berlin has four
local newspapers
. The
Berliner
Morgenpost
is a staid, conservative publication, and
B.Z.
is a trashy tabloid.
Berliner Kurier
is another tabloid
- less trashy but otherwise similar. The other main
local paper is the
Berliner Zeitung
, originally an East
Berlin publication, which covers national and interna-
tional news as well as local stories. Of the
national
dailies, the two best sellers are the centrist
Die Welt
(
W
welt.de), and the sensationalist
Bild
tabloid. At the
other end of the political spectrum are the liberal
Berlin-based
Tagesspiegel
and the left-of-centre
Tageszeitung
, known as
taz
(
W
taz.de) - not so hot on
solid news, but with good in-depth articles on
politics and ecology, and an extensive Berlin listings
section on Friday. It has the added advantage of
being a relatively easy read for non-native German
speakers. The fairly dry and conservative
business
paper, the
Frankfurter Allgemeine
,
is also widely
available in the city, while the reasonably left-wing
Hamburg-based
Die Zeit
appears every Thursday.
Festivals
Berlin's festivals are, in the main, cultural
affairs, with music, art and the theatre
particularly well represented. Among
the other events Volksfeste - small, local
street festivals - are held in most districts
between July and September and worth
looking out if you're on a quest for
open-air music, beer and Wurst.
We've included a selection of the best festivals
below; for others, check the Visit Berlin website
(
W
visitberlin.de) and listings magazines (see p.33).
A festival calendar
JANUARY
Bread & Butter
W
breadandbutter.com. Mid-Jan. The city's most
prestigious winter fashion event. See p.218.
Grüne Woche
W
gruenewoche.de. Late Jan. Berlin's annual
agricultural show, held in the Messegelände, with food goodies to sample
from all over the world.
Sechstagerennen
W
sechstagerennen-berlin.de. Late Jan.
A Berlin tradition since the 1920s, this six-day non-stop cycle race takes
place in the Velodrome, Paul-Heyse-Str.
Television
FEBRUARY & MARCH
Berlinale
W
berlinale.de. Early Feb. The third largest film festival in
the world. See p.223.
Lange Nacht der Museen
W
lange-nacht-der-museen.de.
Mid-March. Many of Berlin's museums extend their hours - most until
midnight - with surprisingly sociable results.
Impro
W
improfestival.de.
Late March.
Running since 2001, this
ten-day event is the biggest improvisational theatre festival in Europe.
Germany has
two national public TV channels
-
ARD and ZDF - which somewhat approximate BBC
channels or a downmarket PBS; Berlin also has
regional public channel RBB. Otherwise major
commercial channels dominate, foremost among
them Sat, RTL and VOX. All channels seem to exist
on a forced diet of US reruns clumsily dubbed into
German. With cable TV, available in larger hotels,
