35 min
55 min
U2 · S8 · S41 · S42 · M1 · M10
14.0 / km²
9
6
1,490
+10% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Prenzlauer Berg
Prenzlauer Berg came through the war largely intact, so the Altbau facades people picture when they picture Berlin are here, street after street of them, around Kollwitzplatz, Helmholtzplatz and Kastanienallee. It is the calmest central district in the city and the one with the most children in it. Mauerpark, on the western edge, holds the Sunday flea market and the open-air karaoke that half the city turns up to.
What it does not have is a single thing you flew here to see. Every sight is a ride: the U2 from Eberswalder Strasse reaches Alexanderplatz in ten minutes and the M10 tram runs all night, but on foot Museum Island is thirty-five minutes downhill and thirty-five back. Nightlife is wine bars and a handful of pubs; for a club you go to Friedrichshain. And the district has not been cheap for fifteen years, which is the standing local complaint about it.
Book it for a longer stay, for a second visit, or with children. Stay south of Danziger Strasse if you want to keep the walk into Mitte under half an hour.
What works
- Street after street of unbombed 19th-century Altbau, which is what people come to look at
- U2 from Eberswalder Strasse reaches Alexanderplatz in 10 minutes; the M10 tram runs all night
- The quietest central district: no clubs, no stag groups, playgrounds instead
- Sunday flea market and open-air karaoke at Mauerpark, on foot from most addresses
- Family flats sleeping four cost less than two hotel rooms in Mitte
What does not
- Not one sight on your list is in this district
- Rates caught up with the rest of the centre years ago; this is no longer the cheap side
- Nightlife stops at wine bars, so a club night means a tram back at 04:00
- Thirty-five minutes on foot to Museum Island, and the way back is uphill
- Trouble around Mauerpark on the night of 30 April, most years
It has gentrified similarly to Brooklyn/Williamsburg from deserted apartment houses into a lively area for students, artists and young people – if they or their parents can afford it. Rents have risen sharply in the last few years, and many empty apartments in this area are no longer rented out but sold, refurbished into luxurious lofts or hostel rooms.