45 min
45 min
U1 · U5 · S3 · S5 · S7 · M10 · M13
17.8 / km²
6
13
1,308
City average
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Mixed after dark
Warschauer Strasse and the RAW-Gelaende draw drunk crowds and pickpockets until dawn. Keep your phone away there, and stay clear of Rigaer Strasse and Boxhagener Platz on the night of 30 April.
Staying in Friedrichshain
Friedrichshain is where the club map is. Berghain sits at its western edge, the RAW-Gelaende halfway along Revaler Strasse, the East Side Gallery along the river, and Simon-Dach-Strasse is an unbroken run of bars. Rooms cost less here than in any other district in this guide, hostels included, and Ostkreuz puts BER under thirty minutes away without a change.
The cost is your night. Simon-Dach-Strasse and Revaler Strasse are audible from the flats above them until dawn, seven days a week rather than at weekends. Warschauer Strasse station is the messiest interchange in Berlin after midnight, and it is where phones go missing. Rigaer Strasse, ten minutes north, is the front line of the city's long squat conflict, with police operations, burnt cars and reliable trouble on the night of 30 April.
If you book here, book north of Frankfurter Allee or east towards Boxhagener Platz, five minutes further out and a different volume of street. Ask for a courtyard-facing room and check the address against the bar streets before you pay.
What works
- Berghain, the RAW-Gelaende and the East Side Gallery are all inside the district
- The cheapest rooms of any district in this guide, hostels and hotels alike
- Ostkreuz reaches BER in under 30 minutes with no change
- Boxhagener Platz has a Saturday food market and a Sunday flea market
- U5 and the S-Bahn ring, plus the M10 and M13 trams all night
What does not
- Simon-Dach-Strasse and Revaler Strasse are loud until dawn, every night of the week
- Warschauer Strasse station after midnight is chaotic and worked by pickpockets
- Forty-five minutes on foot to Museum Island, so every sightseeing day starts with a train
- Rigaer Strasse brings police operations and burnt cars, reliably on 30 April
- Very little in the district is aimed at anyone over thirty-five
Watch your bags during rush hours, at larger train stations (with the central and Warschauer stations being notoriously sketchy at night).Nowadays they usually start the night before May 1, especially in the Mauerpark (Prenzlauer Berg), at Boxhagener Platz and in Rigaer Str. (Friedrichshain) and start again in the evening of May 1 in Kreuzberg and in the mentioned areas.