Berlin Loves Klangkunst in the Spring

It’s worth the extra walk if you go to the Jewish Museum. Ankerklause in summer is one of the best places to imbibe caffeine while sitting over the canal, watching swans and tourists float by. During the week, also check out the Turkish market on Kotbusser Damm along the canal. Take the U8 back to the city purely for the space-travel effect as the train bends and twists around the curving subway route, giving a sense of the wormhole in the movie Contact.

Discover Bohemian Neukölln
Körnerpark is a magnificent Baroque garden, laid out with precision along pathways of relaxing green, reached by a walk down the stairs into this sumptuous sanctuary. The elegant terrace café serves an excellent campari and orange, with a summer program of jazz on Sundays and art in the gallery. A short walk across Karl Marx Str. towards Bohemische Str. brings you to the village settled by Protestant Bohemians fleeing their Moravian hometown in the early 1700s. Stroll through the quiet streets, past a blacksmith’s cottage to one of the beer houses and enjoy the rustic atmosphere.

Rathaus Neukölln is the local town hall. You may never have to register your address with the Berlin authorities, so could miss out on this spectacular piece of German bureaucratic architecture. There is an intricate mosaic of the local area just inside the entrance hall, and a sunny courtyard café by the fountain. Thoben Bakery, across the road, has delicious fruit Kuchen at only seventy-five cents apiece—take it in to sustain yourself during the following. Step inside the cool green halls and wander around looking for information to get the authentic experience. If you really want to mess with the system, enact your own conceptual art performance in a contemporary Beckett piece. First find the Bezirksamt, realize the strange opening times mean you have to come back again tomorrow, take a number and while away a few hours’ people watching in the waiting room. Once your number is called, go to the German official and tell them you’re having existential angst and don’t know what you want, or who you need to speak to, but maybe they can help?

If you really must go to Prenzlauer Berg …
Tisch-Tennis is fun. And the nightly round-robin at Dr Pong gets a little crazy! The best tables for playing ping-pong in the park are at Helmholtzplatz, opposite the wonderfully decadent Wohnzimmer café on Lette Str., where you can retire afterwards for a beverage with the Prenzlauer Berg hipsters. Bring your own bat and ball, but be prepared to wait in line as the tables are in high rotation during the summer months.

Don’t get stuck in one of those annoying soulless café’s on Kastanien Allee.