# Is Kreuzberg a Good Area to Stay in Berlin? Map & Verdict

Verdict: Mixed. Fine for some travellers, wrong for others.

Interactive map: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/kreuzberg
Every Berlin district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin.md

Berlin's best eating and its best-known drug park are four blocks apart. Kreuzberg 61 is calm and residential; Kreuzberg 36 around Kottbusser Tor is neither.

Facts: 35 min walk to Museum Island; 50 min to the airport; price €€€; best for food, nightlife, solo travellers, couples; lines U1, U3, U6, U7, U8.
Safety: Mixed after dark. Kottbusser Tor and Goerlitzer Park have an open drug scene after dark. It is aimed at buyers rather than at visitors, but walk around the park at night rather than through it.

Kreuzberg is two districts that share a name, and locals still insist on the difference. Kreuzberg 36, east of Mehringdamm, is Oranienstrasse, Kottbusser Tor, Goerlitzer Park and the Turkish market on the Maybachufer: the best street food in the city and the loudest streets in it. Kreuzberg 61, west of Mehringdamm, is Bergmannstrasse and Viktoriapark, middle-class, leafy and twenty minutes from Potsdamer Platz.

The downsides are specific and they are all in 36. Kottbusser Tor has an open drinking and dealing scene that does not stop at night. Goerlitzer Park is the city's best-known drug market; the police raid it and it stays what it is. Oranienstrasse is loud until 04:00 on a Wednesday, not just at weekends. The May Day riots start here, around Oranienstrasse and Mariannenplatz, and have done since the 1980s.

Book Bergmannkiez if you want to eat well and sleep, and Oranienstrasse only if you plan to be out until it closes. Either way you are ten minutes from Checkpoint Charlie on the U6 and thirty-five on foot from Museum Island.

What works:
- The best street food in Berlin, from the Maybachufer Turkish market to Markthalle Neun
- U1, U3, U6, U7 and U8 all cross the district, so nothing in the city needs two changes
- Bergmannstrasse and Viktoriapark are calm, leafy and 20 minutes from Potsdamer Platz
- The Landwehrkanal towpath runs the length of the district and is the nicest walk in Berlin
- Checkpoint Charlie and the Jewish Museum are a 10-minute walk from the northern edge

What does not:
- Kottbusser Tor has an open drinking and dealing scene that runs around the clock
- Goerlitzer Park is the city's known drug market, and raids have never changed that
- Oranienstrasse is loud until 04:00 every night, not only at weekends
- The May Day riots start here, around Oranienstrasse and Mariannenplatz
- Rates in the quiet half now match Mitte's without matching Mitte's location

Hotels in Kreuzberg: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D201%26dest_type%3Ddistrict%26group_adults%3D2%26no_rooms%3D1

## Other districts in Berlin

- [Mitte](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/mitte): Recommended. Everything on the first page of your itinerary is inside one 25-minute walk. You pay the highest rates in Berlin for it, and half the district is asleep by 21:00.
- [Prenzlauer Berg](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/prenzlauer-berg): Recommended. Whole streets of unbombed 19th-century apartment blocks, a playground on every corner and no club scene at all. That last part is why people book it.
- [Friedrichshain](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/friedrichshain): Mixed. The cheapest central beds in Berlin and the loudest nights. Book it if the trip is Berghain, the RAW-Gelaende and the East Side Gallery. Do not book it to sleep.
- [Neukölln](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/neukoelln): Mixed. The northern strip above Hermannplatz has the cheapest rooms and the newest bars in Berlin. The rest of the district has nothing for a visitor at all.
- [Charlottenburg](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/charlottenburg): Mixed. West Berlin's old centre has the most hotel rooms, the widest streets and the quietest nights. It is also twenty-five minutes from the Berlin you came to see.
- [Schöneberg](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/schoeneberg): Recommended. Quiet 19th-century streets, Europe's oldest gay quarter and rates below Mitte's. You trade a twenty-minute U-Bahn ride for a night's sleep.
- [Moabit](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/moabit): Mixed. The budget chains behind Hauptbahnhof are five minutes from the platform and thirty-five from anything you want to look at. Good transport, no reason to walk out.
- [Tiergarten](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/tiergarten): Mixed. Berlin's biggest park, the Philharmonie and the embassies, with Potsdamer Platz on its eastern edge. Superb to look at and nearly empty of ordinary streets.
- [Wilmersdorf](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/wilmersdorf): Mixed. The quiet half of City West, south of the Ku'damm. Good value, safe, leafy, and a district almost no visitor has a reason to walk around.
- [Gesundbrunnen](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-berlin/gesundbrunnen): Mixed. Wedding's eastern half: cheap beds, a major rail interchange and the Berlin Wall Memorial. Also the area Wikivoyage names for robbery risk.