Neighborhoods
Neighborhoods nobody has on their list yet: Moabit, Wedding, Victoriastadt, Pankow
Kreuzberg, Neukölln and Prenzlauer Berg are in every guidebook. In between are neighborhoods where Berliners simply live, shop and sit by the canal, away from the well-known photo spots. We show you five of them here, each with what is worth seeing, how to get there and how we rate them in our Kiez atlas.
For food Moabit (Arminius market hall, Monday to Saturday)
By the water Sprengelkiez (canal), Soldiner Kiez (Panke), Kaskelkiez (Rummelsburger Bucht)
Quietest Kaskelkiez and Florakiez
With history Zellengefängnis memorial park in Moabit, Soldiner Kiez as a former dead end at the Wall
The classic
Kollwitzkiez on a Saturday
Beautifully restored, a big market, cafés on every corner, and full for exactly that reason.
Kieznah tip
Moabit on a weekday
Lunch in the Arminius market hall, then on foot to the memorial park by the main station. Half a day hardly any visitor knows about.
01 Moabit · Mitte
about 3 minutes on foot from Turmstraße U-Bahn to the Arminius market hall, 6 minutes to the Kleiner Tiergarten
Directions in Google Maps · Official site
Moabit is an island, surrounded by the Spree and canals, and it has a mind of its own. The heart of it for visitors is the Arminiusmarkthalle at Arminiusstraße 2: opened in 1891, a listed building, revived in 2010. Under the old hall roof you find fruit, cheese, fish, bread and wine, plus food stalls with cooking from many countries. The hall is open Monday to Saturday from 8 am to 10 pm, the food stalls from noon, and it is closed on Sundays and public holidays (current times from the market hall). On Monday mornings some stalls are still shut, so lunchtime is best. Just around the corner is the Kleiner Tiergarten, a narrow park along Turmstraße.
about 6 minutes on foot from the main station to the memorial park, about 29 minutes from the Arminius market hall
Directions in Google Maps · More on berlin.de
At the other end of Moabit, opposite the main station, lies one of the most moving places in the city: the Geschichtspark Ehemaliges Zellengefängnis, a memorial park on the site of a former prison. The prison was built between 1842 and 1849 with around 520 single cells, in the belief that isolation would prevent reoffending. Wilhelm Voigt, later known as the "Captain of Köpenick", was held here, and in 1944 so was the writer Wolfgang Borchert. Albrecht Haushofer wrote the "Moabit Sonnets" here in 1944/45, and a quotation from them is inscribed on the wall. The prison was largely demolished in 1958, and since 2006 the site has been a public park. Lawns trace the star-shaped plan of the cell wings, hornbeam hedges mark the cells, and in a reconstructed concrete cell you hear lines from the sonnets. The old brick walls, around five meters high, keep the noise of the station outside. Open until 9 pm in summer and 4 pm in winter, with entrances on Invalidenstraße, Lehrter Straße and Minna-Cauer-Straße. What became of other Berlin prisons is in Behind bars.
Moabit has been my neighborhood from the start: I was born here and lived here until I was 24. Today I live in Wilmersdorf, but when I want to show visitors a Berlin neighborhood that is not yet in every guidebook, Moabit is the first that comes to mind.
Daniel
In the Kiez atlas: bustle 2, green and water 2, food and drink 3, own world 5, connections 4 (out of 5)
02 Sprengelkiez · Wedding
about 7 minutes on foot from Amrumer Straße U-Bahn to Sprengelpark, 9 minutes to Pekinger Platz
In the southwest of Wedding, between Föhrer Straße, Müllerstraße, the Ringbahn and the Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal, around 14,000 people live in buildings from around 1900. The neighborhood is named after Sprengelstraße, which honors the botanist Christian Konrad Sprengel, and some call it the Sparrplatz quarter. The best part is the Nordufer by the canal: a narrow waterside path with benches, past the Robert Koch Institute, plus Pekinger Platz with a playground and pavilion and the hidden Sprengelpark between the apartment blocks. A few steps further on, the Nordhafenpark surrounds the North Harbor. Look closely and you find traces of colonial history in the street names: Samoastraße, Kiautschoustraße and Pekinger Platz, named in 1905 after the capital of imperial China at the time.
In the Kiez atlas: bustle 2, green and water 3, food and drink 2, own world 4, connections 3 (out of 5)
03 Kaskelkiez (Victoriastadt) · Lichtenberg
about 5 minutes on foot from Nöldnerplatz S-Bahn to Tuchollaplatz, 8 minutes to Pfarrstraße; about 12 minutes from Ostkreuz
Enclosed by railway tracks on every side, a small island of old buildings lies just behind Ostkreuz. Most of the houses date from 1872 to 1906; in 1990 many were in poor condition, and afterwards the quarter was almost completely restored in keeping with its heritage. The name Victoriastadt recalls the British queen, the nickname Kaskelkiez comes from Kaskelstraße. The loveliest street is Pfarrstraße, with stucco façades and old farm buildings in the back courtyards, and most of the listed houses are here. There is a market on Tuchollaplatz on Fridays, and at Nöldnerplatz artists and craftspeople work in the B.L.O. studios in a former railway depot. The Rummelsburger Bucht is just a few minutes away, more in Berlin from the water.
In the Kiez atlas: bustle 2, green and water 2, food and drink 2, own world 5, connections 4 (out of 5)
04 Soldiner Kiez · Gesundbrunnen
about 11 minutes on foot from Pankstraße U-Bahn to the Stephanuskirche; about 9 minutes from Wollankstraße S-Bahn to the Franzosenbecken
Directions in Google Maps · Official site
The rougher sibling on this list, and all the more honest for it. The neighborhood between the northern railway, Osloer Straße and Drontheimer Straße was a dead end until 1989: to the north and east it ended at the border with East Berlin. Today the dead-end streets have become through roads and back courtyards have become community gardens. The houses mostly date from around 1900, and there are small shops, snack bars, restaurants with cooking from many countries and galleries; it is not a trendy district. The Panke river flows through the neighborhood with old trees and a riverside path, and the Franzosenbecken, an overflow basin of the Panke, is now a small park. The almost 80-meter tower of the neo-Gothic Stephanuskirche at the corner of Prinzenallee and Soldiner Straße can be seen from afar. In December, tea lights float on the water at the festival of lights run by the panke.info association.
Not yet in the Kiez atlas; our view: little bustle, many cultures, the Panke right on the doorstep
05 Florakiez · Pankow
Florastraße runs between Wollankstraße and Pankow S-Bahn stations, about 18 minutes on foot from Wollankstraße to its end at Pankow station, about 12 minutes to the Bürgerpark
Right next to Prenzlauer Berg, but much more relaxed: around Florastraße old lime, oak and maple trees line the old buildings, with small shops, cafés, pubs, studios and galleries in between. Young families, creatives, students and long-time residents live here. To the northwest lies the Bürgerpark Pankow with trees up to 150 years old, a rose garden, a big playground, an animal enclosure and the Panke, which flows on from here into the Soldiner Kiez. You can see the industrial past at the Alte Mälzerei on Mühlenstraße, an old malt house whose oldest buildings date from the 19th century and which now contains apartments. A day combines well: the Panke path from the Soldiner Kiez up to the Bürgerpark and on into the Florakiez.
Not yet in the Kiez atlas; our view: quiet, green, lots of families, well connected by S-Bahn and U-Bahn
Good to know
People live their everyday lives in these neighborhoods; they are not a backdrop. Take photos of doorways and courtyards with consideration, and in community gardens you are a guest. An AB ticket covers all five. To compare them with others, all our ratings are in the Kiez atlas, and if you want to stay there, read Where to stay in Berlin first.