75 min
60 min
U1 · U2 · U7 · U9 · S5 · S7 · S41
11.7 / km²
19
16
755
−9% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Charlottenburg
When the city was split, West Berlin built a centre of its own around Bahnhof Zoo and the Kurfuerstendamm, and that is what Charlottenburg still is: department stores, wide boulevards, Schloss Charlottenburg, the zoo, and by a distance the largest supply of mid-range and upscale hotel rooms in the city. Rooms are bigger than in the east, off-season rates fall a long way, and nothing keeps you awake.
Then 1990 happened and the centre of gravity moved back east. Museum Island, the Brandenburg Gate, the East Side Gallery, the clubs and every district people describe when they describe Berlin are twenty-five to thirty-five minutes away on the U2 or the S-Bahn, each way, every day. Museum Island is seventy-five minutes on foot, which means never. The Ku'damm itself is chain retail now; the interesting shops left for Mitte years ago. Bahnhof Zoo lost its long-distance trains, so arriving by rail means crossing the city first.
Book Charlottenburg for space, quiet and price, especially with children or on a longer stay. Do not book it expecting to walk out of the hotel into anything.
What works
- The largest supply of mid-range and upscale hotels in Berlin, so off-season rates drop hard
- Quiet at night: no club scene, no bar strips, wide streets and old buildings
- Schloss Charlottenburg, KaDeWe, the zoo and the Gedaechtniskirche are all in the district
- U1, U2, U7 and U9 plus three S-Bahn lines; Alexanderplatz is about 25 minutes
- Rooms are larger than the eastern districts sell at the same price
What does not
- Everything most people fly to Berlin for is in the east, 25 to 35 minutes each way
- Seventy-five minutes on foot to Museum Island, which rules walking out entirely
- The Ku'damm is chain retail; the shops worth a detour moved to Mitte
- Bahnhof Zoo no longer takes long-distance trains, so rail arrivals cross town first
- Skews older and quieter than the Berlin visitors describe to each other
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, some high-end retail and other representative functions (including certain hotels) have abandoned City West for the old heart of Berlin, particularly Potsdamer Platz, which was the busiest square in Europe by some measures in the 1920s and "no man's land" during partition, and became the biggest construction site in post-reunification Germany for a while.The station used to be West Berlin's main intercity train station, but now sees virtually no long distance service.