Two Days in Berlin, Germany | Notes from the Archive
the seventh city of my 2012 inter-railing trip!
*SHARED TO THE BLOG IN NOVEMBER 2025.
ARCHIVE / aar•kive / (noun): a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.
Welcome to a new Notes from the Archive post, a series in which I am sharing some of my old & well documented travel notes to the blog. I’ve been keeping detailed notes and journals from my travels abroad long before I ever started sharing that content to this little corner of the internet. For some reason, it only dawned on me recently that, although not as thorough as my note-taking and journaling of today, this information could a. be useful to someone out there planning a trip, b. offer a glimpse into my travel days of yore, or c. just be fun for me to relive briefly under the pretense of being useful — so I figured why not share them here!
If you have stumbled across this post on a deep-dive through the blog archives, hello! I have done my darndest to make sure every piece of information shared here is just as relevant today as it was the day it was scrawled in my journal. I would also like to take a moment here to apologise in advance for any poor-quality photographs. You have been warned.
Today’s Notes from the Archive post — Two Days in Berlin, Germany — covers everything myself and my then-boyfriend got up to during our 2012 inter-railing trip. Berlin was the seventh official city of the trip, and, although Germany wasn’t a new-to-me country, I’d never visited this capital city before!
Listed below is all the useful information I could garner from my trusty old journal, divided into the following categories for ease: getting there / where we stayed / where we ate / and where we touristed.
Enjoy, friends!
getting there
Here’s how we made the journey to Berlin:
from Praha Hlavní Nádraží, we took a train all the way to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the main train station in the city. The journey took 4-hours and 45-minutes.
if you’re counting along with me, this journey from Prague to Berlin was the fifth official use of our inter-railing tickets, which allowed us to travel on any 7-days within a 1-month period. For more info on the different inter-railing tickets, see the official website here.
from Berlin Hauptbahnhof, we took the U5 U-Bahn heading in the direction of S+U Wuhletal station, and got out at Frankfurter Allee station. This train only took 17-minutes.
from Frankfurter Allee station, we walked 10-minutes to our hostel, below.
FYI: inter-railing tickets allow for free travel on all German S-Bahn trains — but ONLY the S-Bahn trains, and not any U-Bahn trains, trams, or buses! However, if you’re hoping to avail of a free S-Bahn ride, be sure to plan accordingly and line the journey up with a bigger travel day, as you’d need to deduct this from one of your official travel days.
where we stayed
Schlafmeile Hostel // I have no idea why we chose this place, but oof, it was located really far away from the city centre! Don’t get me wrong, the hostel was fine — the dorm was clean and the beds were comfy — but we had to get the U-Bahn in and out of the city anytime we wanted to go anywhere, which wasn’t ideal. Address: Weichselstraße 25, 10247 Berlin
*2025 UPDATE: now permanently closed.
where we ate
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that, nowadays, I consider myself somewhat of a foodie — but this certainly wasn’t the case back in 2012! Listed below are the food stops I named in my journal, which I am sharing for posterity only!
Dunkin’ Donuts // how exotic! Having never had DD before, we obvz had to go here for a donut or two. Address: S-Bhf Alexanderplatz, 10178 Berlin
Food Lounge Berlin // I think we stopped here with the intention of eating a traditional German meal — and then both went for pizzas instead. The lure of pizza is just too hard to resist sometimes! Address: St. Wolfgang-Straße 4, 10178 Berlin
*2025 UPDATE: now permanently closed.
Langnese Happiness Station // a soft serve ice-cream place where you can choose loads of different toppings etc. I was 90% full of ice-cream during my whole inter-railing trip. Address: Frankfurter Allee 111, 10247 Berlin
*2025 UPDATE: now permanently closed.
where we touristed
free attractions
East Side Gallery // aka: the longest preserved piece of the Berlin Wall, which has since been redesigned into a funky art gallery of sorts. Fun fact: the East Side Gallery is the largest open air gallery in the world! A must visit. Address: Mühlenstraße, 10243 Berlin
Walk of the Century, Berlin Edition // after realizing how much we can learn on a non-self-guided city tour, we sought out SANDEMANs free walking tour on Berlin and followed along with that instead. It started at Pariser Platz, ended outside the Berliner Dom on Museum Island, and took a route of about 5.3-kilometres. Here’s what we saw:
Pariser Platz // square in the historic centre of Berlin, surrounded by fancy hotels and embassies. Around the square we also saw:
Brandenburg Gate // one of 18 gates into the old walled city, but this is the most important (the Royal Gate).
Hotel Adlon // where Michael Jackson infamously dangled his baby over the balcony for paparazzi to see.
Reichstag Building // current seat of the German parliament.
Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe // aka: the city’s Holocaust Memorial. More on this below!
brandenburg gate // memorial to the murdered jews of europe Car park over the Führerbunker // aka: where Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide. The exact spot over the bunker was deliberately redeveloped into a dull car park, to prevent it from becoming a shrine for neo-Nazis. Clever!
Aviation Ministery of Berlin // previously Luftwaffe HQ — aka: the official air force of Nazi Germany — our guide took us here because it’s a good example of Nazi architecture.
Topography of Terror // previously the SS headquarters, now a museum. Also more on this below!
Checkpoint Charlie // site of the most famous checkpoint between East and West Berlin.
Gendarmenmarkt // another fancy square, this one showcasing:
The Konzerthaus Berlin
Neue Kirche // aka: German Cathedral.
Duomo dei Francesi // aka: French Cathedral.
Bebelplatz // another public square, this one showcasing:
The Empty Library // aka: an underground memorial dedicated to remembering the 20,000 books burned by the Nazis in Berlin on May 10, 1933.
Berlin State Opera
St. Hedwig’s Cathedral
Neue Wache Memorial // aka: a memorial to the victims of war and tyranny. This memorial, which is a simple standalone statue in the middle of an otherwise vast empty room, really hit me!
Berliner Dom // aka: Berlin Cathedral.
Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe // made up of 2,711 concrete blocks of different heights and sizes, this memorial is every bit as disorientating and confusing as the artist who designed it intended it to be. A very powerful piece. A must visit. Address: Cora-Berliner-Straße 1, 10117 Berlin
Topography of Terror // essentially: a huge timeline going from the very beginning of Hitler’s rise to power, to the eventual war, the victims, Germany’s problems, and then after the war, the Wall, and the fallout etc. Honestly, it was a lot to take in — but it was good! Address: Niederkirchnerstraße 8, 10963 Berlin
paid attractions
Pergamonmuseum // to this day, still the best museum I’ve ever been in. Filled to the brim with HUGE life-size reconstructions — an ancient Greek altar, a Roman entrance to a market, the small part of the Ishtar Gate into Babylon — this blew my art history addict mind wide open! An absolute must visit. Address: Bodestraße 1-3, 10178 Berlin
And there we have it: Two Days in Berlin, Germany! I hope you enjoyed this latest post in my Notes from the Archive series! I’ll be back soon with the next stop from my inter-railing trip: Munich!
Until then,
Victoria xo
*Date of trip: 30th May - 2nd June, 2012*
related posts
My 2012 Inter-Railing Itinerary | Notes from the Archive
72 Hours in Prague, Czech Republic | Notes from the Archive
Berlin Travel Guide | 4 Days in the German Capital