Berlin, respect!
First themed Berlin and I don't even know how many there will be. Today we are talking about Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain.
Today's premise
Another blogpost, another capital. Game on the safe for now. It's easy for me to write about 'close' places I know so well, it's a bit harder to give an overview of a long trip across the world.
I am asked to write about Japan right away, but I confess I am afraid to face such a sacred monster and to confront myself with the real experts. I do not feel ready and I am not. I am just a humble traveller, not an expert.
So for the moment I keep swimming near the edge. Then we will see.
Respect for Berlin is required
"There is a rule that you need to go to Berlin to feel a little less normal. Obviously and dispassionately personal opinion: I'm really unhappy with the idea that Berlin has become the place where to go to make pussy. No, no, no. Berlin is among the fulcrums of the history of the 20th century. Berlin has a very recent history and is heavier than ever. The city carries it on its shoulders and you tourist have to do the same.
We must have respect for Berlin. Of his wounds.
A city that has been foiled, separated, somehow reunited and now a carte blanche of architecture firms around the world who can't believe that they have so many possibilities to create from nowhere in the heart of the city centre. Where the Wall was now there are the archistars.
As an architecture lover I say it's beautiful, as an Berlin lover I say it's a bit less so. Because it is by completely changing face that Berlin loses its character.
I'm talking about Kreuzberg first and foremost, the multi-ethnic district par excellence, symbol of integration and coexistence that has become an "alternative" meeting point.
I read with regret of the artist Blu that he cancelled his historical graffiti of the area because soon the building would be demolished. I understand that.
Ergo, run and breathe Berlin before that.
Have you ever been to Kreuzberg? What a figata. No, I don't know how to describe it.
There I saw my first co-working space in 2010. I had heard about it, but visit
betahaus was really an experience. There's even a workshop for artists full of tools.
I ate the best kebabs of my life in Kreuzberg, ça va sans dire, because it's a neighborhood with a high Turkish representation.
In 2011 I was Berlin for work and arrived late in the evening, alone.
I thought of going out to eat. I took a kebab at the beginning of Oranienstraße, towards Moritzplatz (unfortunately this place is no longer there) and there were no customers besides me. The boy from the club prepared a kebab himself, uncorked a coca and sat in front of me. It was great, I had just arrived and I felt at home.
After a half hour the cousins arrived, then Turkish çay for everyone. Olé! This is Kreuzberg: you never know what will happen to you.
Only in Tokyo or Rome do I feel like this: unpredictable places.
If you're from Moritzplatz and you're heading for Oranienstraße (you'll see kebabs and Asian restaurants on the way, you're in the right place for these kitchens), stop at number 25. Enter the Kisch & Co. bookshop and be amazed by the quantity and quality of the volumes of any kind of existing art. Here I found a book with funny inscriptions on Berlin walls (Note: in reality Germans have a very 'close' relationship with inscriptions on walls, a phenomenon much more widespread than in Italy. One morning in Hamburg I left home and found fresh tags on the door. I would dare say that in Germany it has become a problem). A few steps from the entrance, go over the cash desk on the right, go practically straight and... you will leave the bookshop to find yourself inside an exhibition, but without really going out. A bookcase / closet of Narnia. And Kreuzberg is also so: without categories.
Kitsch
Temporary exhibition in the backroom of the Kisch & Co.
From here on Oranienstraße will be a succession of Asian restaurants, bookshops and comics (just a little further on, same side of the street, you will find Modern Graphics).
If you want to sleep in the area, I recommend the Motel One hotel in Moritzplatz in Kreuzberg, at the beginning of the very long Oranienstraße and right at the U-Bahn Moritzplatz stop.
In this square I had found a fantastic shop of wonderful objects made of recycled material. If you are interested (and if you speak German) you will find here the e-shop because unfortunately the shop closed at the end of December 2015. What a pity, though!
I close with Kreuzberg talking about the famous nightlife (only after you brought compared to Berlin, of course). Berlin is the world capital of techno and you know. If it's your genre, you'll just have to indulge in it and launch into one of the many clubs.
The best of them all seems to be the Berghain ('it seems' because unfortunately I don't have any direct experience, not yet!) and its name is a fusion at Dragon Ball between the names Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, the two neighborhoods of which it marks the border. It seems that it is also difficult to get into this venue and the online newspaper Il Mitte gives you some advice here.
Personally I recommend the Tresor. There I went around 1 am and was still little crowded, but better so, otherwise it touches make the queue. The Tresor is a former power plant now nightlife venue. Few adaptations have been made to convert the place from one task to another so the "hall" is located underground between rough concrete columns and rubble. Few and synthetic lights. Almost non-existent furniture.
My advice is to wear earplugs or earmuffs. The sound bounces from crazy people below. The bathrooms are probably former power station cabins and the only thing that has been added are the toilets and sinks.
I remember graffiti everywhere and a surreal atmosphere. An experience to be done, certainly. Decadently' enchanting, if you are fond of abandoned places like the undersigned, can only make you shine your eyes a building not distorted, but simply reused.
Friedrichshain
It is considered the "heir" district of Kreuzberg. Since the latter is changing face it was necessary and natural to find a place where to carry forward the alternative, underground climate of Berlin.
Here he is, a large portion of the former East Berlin that Alexander Platz can reach by following the great Karl Marx Allee road, a huge avenue overlooked by imposing Art Deco buildings (typical of Nazi, Fascist and Soviet architecture). You will arrive at Frankfurter Tor (Frankfurter's Oder Gate) and I recommend you admire the two towers surmounted by domes. The impression is extremely ... "monumental". In the evening, the domes are lit up. To you it may not seem anything that has fascinated me, but it has fascinated me very much. She left me mute. (Note: Between Karl Marx Allee and the not far away Wedekindstraße have shot the film The Lives of Others, winner of an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Council.)
If you're from Moritzplatz and you're heading for Oranienstraße (you'll see kebabs and Asian restaurants on the way, you're in the right place for these kitchens), stop at number 25. Enter the Kisch & Co. bookshop and be amazed by the quantity and quality of the volumes of any kind of existing art. Here I found a book with funny inscriptions on Berlin walls (Note: in reality Germans have a very 'close' relationship with inscriptions on walls, a phenomenon much more widespread than in Italy. One morning in Hamburg I left home and found fresh tags on the door. I would dare say that in Germany it has become a problem). A few steps from the entrance, go over the cash desk on the right, go practically straight and... you will leave the bookshop to find yourself inside an exhibition, but without really going out. A bookcase / closet of Narnia. And Kreuzberg is also so: without categories.
Kitsch
Temporary exhibition in the backroom of the Kisch & Co.
From here on Oranienstraße will be a succession of Asian restaurants, bookshops and comics (just a little further on, same side of the street, you will find Modern Graphics).
If you want to sleep in the area, I recommend the Motel One hotel in Moritzplatz in Kreuzberg, at the beginning of the very long Oranienstraße and right at the U-Bahn Moritzplatz stop.
In this square I had found a fantastic shop of wonderful objects made of recycled material. If you are interested (and if you speak German) you will find here the e-shop because unfortunately the shop closed at the end of December 2015. What a pity, though!
I close with Kreuzberg talking about the famous nightlife (only after you brought compared to Berlin, of course). Berlin is the world capital of techno and you know. If it's your genre, you'll just have to indulge in it and launch into one of the many clubs.
The best of them all seems to be the Berghain ('it seems' because unfortunately I don't have any direct experience, not yet!) and its name is a fusion at Dragon Ball between the names Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, the two neighborhoods of which it marks the border. It seems that it is also difficult to get into this venue and the online newspaper Il Mitte gives you some advice here.
Personally I recommend the Tresor. There I went around 1 am and was still little crowded, but better so, otherwise it touches make the queue. The Tresor is a former power plant now nightlife venue. Few adaptations have been made to convert the place from one task to another so the "hall" is located underground between rough concrete columns and rubble. Few and synthetic lights. Almost non-existent furniture.
My advice is to wear earplugs or earmuffs. The sound bounces from crazy people below. The bathrooms are probably former power station cabins and the only thing that has been added are the toilets and sinks.
I remember graffiti everywhere and a surreal atmosphere. An experience to be done, certainly. Decadently' enchanting, if you are fond of abandoned places like the undersigned, can only make you shine your eyes a building not distorted, but simply reused.
Friedrichshain
It is considered the "heir" district of Kreuzberg. Since the latter is changing face it was necessary and natural to find a place where to carry forward the alternative, underground climate of Berlin.
Here he is, a large portion of the former East Berlin that Alexander Platz can reach by following the great Karl Marx Allee road, a huge avenue overlooked by imposing Art Deco buildings (typical of Nazi, Fascist and Soviet architecture). You will arrive at Frankfurter Tor (Frankfurter's Oder Gate) and I recommend you admire the two towers surmounted by domes. The impression is extremely ... "monumental". In the evening, the domes are lit up. To you it may not seem anything that has fascinated me, but it has fascinated me very much. She left me mute. (Note: Between Karl Marx Allee and the not far away Wedekindstraße have shot the film The Lives of Others, winner of an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Council.)
I know this corner well because I recommend a hostel nearby (the subway station is called Frankfurter Tor) in case you are planning a budget stay. It's called The Odysee Hostel and currently I'm told it's both undergoing renovation, check if it's reopened. Clean, original and economical. There are shared or private rooms with bathrooms. At the entrance a sort of setting 'inside the hold of a ship' (perhaps) with the nice presence of a statue of death with a sickle and armor. In short, a very special place. Breakfast excluded, but if I am not mistaken the cost was about 3€, good and super plentiful, I recommend. Look through the windows on the back of the hostel.