On the grounds of a former railroad depot, the German Museum of Technology spreads out like a living timeline of invention. Across galleries and open halls, it traces how people moved, built, and calculated—long before microchips and long after steam. The collection moves from the power of water and wind to early computing ideas, then onward to engines, rails, wings, and screens.
Historic water and wind mills introduce the story of mechanical power, showing how simple forces once drove everyday work. Nearby, early computers appear as hefty cabinets and clever circuits. Konrad Zuse’s pioneering constructions stand out, marking the moment when calculation jumped from paper to programmable machines.
The museum’s transport galleries roll through time with bicycles, motorcycles, and cars, each model capturing shifts in design and speed. On the water side, boats and maritime tools explain navigation and shipbuilding, from river craft to ocean travel. The railroad collection carries the legacy of the site: locomotives, carriages, and track systems laid out with clear stories about engineering, logistics, and the drama of long-distance journeys.
Outside, a striking sight hovers over the building: the “Candy Bomber,” a C-17 aircraft mounted as if frozen in descent. It recalls the historic airlift that once brought hope and supplies to a divided city, turning a machine of war into a symbol of relief. Inside, the aeronautical halls explore aviation from fragile early planes to modern aircraft, with engines, cockpits, and sleek profiles that make the aeronautical section hard to match.
The Spectrum science center, part of the museum, invites visitors to test ideas with their own hands. Interactive experiments demonstrate light, sound, motion, and electricity in simple, direct ways. Levers, lenses, waves, and currents become visible and understandable through playful setups that spark curiosity across ages.
Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Museum_of_Technology
Jewish cemetery and lapidarium with old tombstones.
A man-made hill of about 120 m in the Grunewald, created after the Second World War from debris of the city. On top is the Field Station Berlin, a former US listening station. Inside the building complex you can see lots of graffiti art. The hill can be accessed without any restrictions and is free; however, the building complex is surrounded by fences and requires a ticket (tours are available as well).
A beautiful landscape of water canals and vegetation with charming little fish restaurants.
The memorial site stretches along the full 1.5-km length of Bernauer Straße. The listing marker points to the visitor centre. Various monuments can be found along the entire length of the street, documenting nearby escape attempts and tunnels; captions are in German and English. The documentation centre across the street on Bernauer Straße/Ackerstraße is excellent (although most of the documentation is in German). The viewing platform next to the documentation centre gives you a tiny hint of the true scale of the Wall and how terrifying the "no man's land" between the two sections of walls must have been. The monument (that you can see from the platform) is a complete section of 4th generation wall - both inside and outside sections, and you can peer through from the east side to see the remains of the electric fence and anti-tank devices in the death strip. It really helps you understand what an incredible feat it was to get from one side to the other -- and why so many died doing it. The memorial site is often missed by tourists but an absolute must for anyone interested in this part of the city's history. It's a memorial to those who died crossing, so you won't, fortunately, get the tackiness of the Checkpoint Charlie area; instead you will be left with a haunting feeling of what life with the wall may have been really like.Bernauer Straße is a street with a great deal of Wall history: it came to tragic prominence on August 13, 1961 when East German authorities closed the border and the street (with houses in the East but the street in the West). Border guards walled the doors and windows shut to keep Easterners from escaping by jumping out the window while Westerners (including police and fire brigades who brought life nets to help catch refugees) looked on in horror. The first recorded Wall-related death - the notorious Peter Fechter case (he bled to death in the "no-man's-land" with both sides unwilling or unable to help him) - was here, as was one of the famous tunnels and the famous photograph of the GDR border guard leaping over the barbed wire.
The town hall of Berlin is known as such because it is made of red brick, not due to its former political persuasion. There are nice Prussian rooms inside, which are worth a look.
Arguably the most beautiful bridge in Berlin and the only connection between Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. As signage on the bridge indicates, it was built twice - once in the 1890s and once in the 1990s. Before reunification the border ran where the bridge now is.
150 m high lattice tower with open-air observation deck 124 m above ground.
A remarkable medium-sized classical castle by the famous K.F. Schinkel built 1820 to 1824, also called "Humboldtschlösschen", because Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt (and their family) lived here once. Still privately owned.
Specializes in 19th-century painting and sculpture; Monet, Manet, Cézanne, C. David Friedrich and other important 18th- and 19th-century artists are well-represented.
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.
Small terrace on the top of the Park Inn, publicly accessible. Take the elevator to the 40th floor, and follow the signs up the stairs. Pay the attendant who also serves beer and coffee. Great views of the Fernsehturm. In the summer, consider base jumping off the roof with Jochen Schweizer. It is often closed in bad/windy weather, so look for a notice posted near the elevator that the terrace is closed.
This museum describes the procedures applied by the East German secret police. Every Friday to Monday, there is a guided tour in English at 15:00 (5€).