Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem form one of the city’s key centers for plant research and public education. Established over a century ago, the site spans extensive outdoor grounds and glasshouses, alongside a museum that explores the science, history, and cultural meaning of plants. Together, they offer a clear look at global plant life, from local flora to rare and endangered species.
The garden is part of the Free University of Berlin. As an academic institution, it supports teaching, fieldwork, and long-term research projects. Botanists study plant taxonomy, ecology, and conservation, while students gain hands-on experience in living collections and laboratories. The museum complements this with curated exhibits, archives, and a herbarium used by scholars from around the world.
Across the grounds, themed sections group plants by region and habitat. Paths lead through meadows, forests, and alpine rock gardens, with labels that identify species and share brief notes. The glasshouses recreate climates from tropical rainforests to arid deserts, featuring towering palms, orchids, succulents, and aquatic plants. Seasonal highlights shift through the year, from spring blossoms to summer waterlilies.
The Botanical Museum presents plant science in an accessible way. Displays explain how plants evolve, adapt, and interact with people. Historic instruments, botanical illustrations, and seed collections reveal how researchers document biodiversity. Special exhibitions often focus on topics such as medicinal plants, pollination, or changing ecosystems.
Trails wind around ponds and shaded lawns, offering many places to pause and observe. Birdsong, insect activity, and the sound of water shape the atmosphere. Benches appear beside herb beds and along tree-lined avenues, creating a calm setting for unhurried exploration.
Public programs include guided tours, lectures, and workshops led by experts. Families find interactive stations and kid-friendly displays that explain plant life cycles and habitats. The garden’s clear signage and museum’s multilingual information support visitors with different levels of knowledge.
Located in the Dahlem district, the garden connects urban life with global biodiversity. Historic architecture, including the large tropical greenhouse, contrasts with modern research spaces. Throughout the seasons, the site serves both as a scientific resource and a green landscape open to the public.
Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Botanical_Garden_and_Botanical_Museum
The Gemäldegalerie contains an astounding array of paintings, including works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, Goya, Velasquez and Watteau. The collection contains works from the old Bodemuseum on Museumsinsel in the East, now closed, and the former Gemäldegalerie in Dahlem. Its strong points are German paintings of the 13-16th centuries, Netherlandish painting of the 15th and 16th centuries, Flemish paintings of the 17th century, and miniature paintings of the 16th-19th centuries. In the newer section of the museum, designed by architects Heinz Hilmer and Christoph Sattler, there is enough space to display 1,150 masterpieces in the main gallery and 350 in the studio gallery - of the almost 2,900 pieces in the European painting collections. Established in 1830, the newly built gallery from 1998 has about 7,000 sq m of exhibition space (a complete tour of the 72 rooms covers almost 2 km).
Take a stroll for a few kilometers along this canal which runs right through the heart of Kreuzberg. It's peaceful and mostly traffic-free, but full of life in summer. Some parts are lined with bars and restaurants with terraces. Sit on a bench or terrace and watch the world go by on a summer evening.
The longest stretch of the Berlin Wall still in existence, painted by artists in 1991 and restored in 2009, after years of decay. At Mühlenstraße, next to the river Spree. The murals are painted on the east side of the wall after the fall of Communism; so they are not from the Cold War, during which murals could only be painted on the west side. Make sure not to miss the famous mural of a car seemingly crashing through the wall with Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing above it. It is actually on the back side of the gallery (it is facing away from the street.) It is just inside the entrance of the Eastern Comfort Hostel, near the east end of the gallery.
The city's Protestant cathedral and the burial place of the Prussian kings. You can climb to the top and get a view of the city.
Erected in 1818 to a classically-inspired design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel as a guardhouse for the imperial palace, since 1993 this compact building has housed a small, but extremely powerful war cenotaph, the Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany, continuing its use under East German rule as the primary "Memorial to the Victims of Fascism and Militarism". The interior of the Doric column-fronted building is intentionally empty, but for a small but moving sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz depicting a mother cradling a dead child. The statue is positioned beneath a round hole in the ceiling, exposing the figures to the rain and snow.
This area was Gay Central during the Weimar Republic, and it is today. But of course all are welcome. There is a diverse mix of restaurants and stores, several of which are open till midnight or later every day. The U-Bahn station has a superstructure and towers that echo the appearance of the Art Nouveau Neues Schauspielhaus across the street, now the Metropol, where radical left-wing dramas used to be presented in the 20s and 30s, and it is lit in rainbow colors.
Built 1859-1866 this is one of the most architecturally stunning synagogues in Germany to survive both the Nazi era and the war.
More than 30 million objects in the scientific collection and a fascinating exhibition in one of the most significant institutions of its kind in the world. Some parts still under construction.
Spectacular building by Mies van der Rohe contains its own collection and temporary exhibitions.
A small but interesting collection of decorative arts from the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods