illustrations: Sophia Halamoda.
As a native Istanbulite, summers always meant eluding the city as soon as possible with everlasting fear of crowds, the heatwaves and the tourists during the entire three months. Leaving the city in summer is almost a global tradition for every metropolitan, except for Berliners. We prefer to foray into foreign lands in winters, but every true Berliner knows in their heart that our city is exceptionally beautiful and sexy in the summer, and we don’t want to skip a bit of it.
Inspired by some of the chapters in our book Like A Berliner, we narrowed down our favorite activities that make Berlin so special in summer. If you enjoy it, you should get the limited summer package including our 2 books Like A Berliner, Learn Deutsch with iHeartBerlin and the “Summer in Berlin” poster in our webshop!
Read on…
by Burak | Stories
photos: Amanda Artiaga
When you make your way from Kottbusser Tor down to Hermannplatz, you’ll get Kreuzberg as you imagine it to be: Loud, busy, weird and colorful. You pass Doenershops, Spaetis, and stores that sell so many cheap and unnecessary things you start questioning what they actually make their money with. If you walk straight down Kottbusser Damm, you wouldn’t necessarily guess that one of Kreuzberg’s most beautiful “Kieze” is just to your right. But as usual in Berlin, you can just turn around one corner and the whole scenery turns upside down.
The Graefekiez won’t be your new go-to hotspot for activities after nightfall, due to strict noise regulations after 22h in this neighborhood. However, all its lovely cafes, delicious restaurants, cute little shops and streets where one beautiful old building stands next to the other, make Graefekiez the perfect destination for a relaxed ‘lil Saturday or Sunday afternoon excursion. We picked a few spots that you should definitely check out.
Read on…
by Andy | Cafés, City Guide, Kreuzberg, Restaurants, Shops
Berlin summers can be everything. They can be this steamy, sweaty, never-ending fantasy covered in a golden, glowy filter. They can, however, also not happen at all. So, you spend that first 26+ degrees day in late March or April inside thinking: “Well, summer’s only getting started, I’ll get my chance to tan. No worries”. And then you end up in late July looking at 14 degrees max, and clouds, clouds, clouds, plus thunderstorms, possibly. “Yeah, thanks Berlin!” Eyeroll. This lady is never to be trusted. What do we learn from this? In Berlin, we have to stick to very basic postcard philosophies and: “Carpe that diem!” When there’s sunshine and blue skies outside of our bedroom window we got a “Drop everything situation” going on. If this puts you in a state of shock and you’re catching your breath, we prepared a step-by-step plan of action for you.
Read on…
by Andy | Stories
photo: TimLeginski
I admit that finding something positive about being in Berlin right now with the temperatures so low is really, really difficult. But we wouldn’t be “I Heart Berlin” if we wouldn’t be able to deal with this little problem, right?
One of the very few upsides of these temperatures, and in fact one that is absolutely exclusive to it, is that we get to set foot on parts of Berlin that we normally never can: The canals, rivers and lakes of the city that are now frozen shut and create new spaces to spend time on, for instance ice skating, playing ice hockey, or watching our dogs clumsily slip on the icy surface. Such fun!
The weekend pretty much exploded with your impressions of places such as Landwehrkanal, the Engelbecken or various lakes with lively activity on them. Also the Spree is a magnificent sight these days with the broken pieces of ice floating around. We collected some of our favorite impressions on Instagram and put them together here in a little gallery for you. Make sure to follow these Instagrammers linked below each photo to see more of Berlin.
Read on…
by Frank | Photos
photos: Guney Cuceloglu
In most major cities of the world the activity of simply “hanging out” is pretty much a luxury that only tourists and maybe less ambitious students can enjoy. The rest of the inhabitants have to hustle the entire day either because it’s necessary to make ends meet or because being busy is a status symbol. In Berlin that’s quite different. Here hanging out is a highly valued part of the life style of the people. It’s embedded into the days of the inhabitants in the same way that late hours at work and strict gym schedules are in other cities. Berliners feel no shame in self-indulgence and being laid back. What other city people might consider as laziness is considered a benefit of this wonderful city.
Photographer Guney Cuceloglu who you might remember from the charming portraits of female and male cyclists went to some of the most popular leisure spots in the city to observe and document how Berliners expertly turn hanging out into an art form. Enjoy his collections of photos after the jump.
Read on…
by Frank | Photos
Following the spirit of our Exploring Berlin series we want to look at another district today and show you our favorite places there. This time we chose the one that we are surrounded by the most as our office at Blogfabrik is located right in the middle of it. I’m talking about Kreuzberg of course, probably one of the most popular districts of Berlin at the moment.
People who come to Berlin just love it here. It’s buzzing and it’s relaxed at the same time. It offers everything from delicious food, compelling art, pulsating nightlife and cultural entertainment. But apart from all of that Kreuzberg is particularly good for one thing: Just hanging out and having a good time. So we drove around in the past days dropping by the most beloved hang-out spots of the Berliners and snapping some photos for you. By the way all of the photos in this feature have been taken with the new Sony Xperia Z5 smartphone (versus the Z1 or my SLR that I normally use) which is being presented at the IFA these days. But now let’s dive into our favorite places in Kreuzberg.
Read on…
by Frank | Bars, Cafés, Clubs, Galleries, Kreuzberg, Restaurants
For those of you who like to hang out at Admiralbrücke and around the riverbanks along the Landwehrkanal we have some good news: No longer do you have to sit on the streets. Right at the popular hang-out spot at the bridge a brand new cafe and restaurant called Milou opened up offering freshly made breakfast, lunch and dinner from healthy and local ingredients.
We checked out the place recently and tried out all their breakfast options which includes a variety of egg dishes, yummy pancakes and oatmeal. Thew quality of the food and coffee was really good and the prices really fair, what more can you ask for? There is of course a lot more, but we needed to save some space for the gorgeous looking cakes (which tasted as just as great as they looked). For lunch and dinner they have a colorful menu plus some daily specials which we yet have to try out. It includes freshly made pasta, fish and meat dishes, salads, soups, Tarte Flambee, Quiche and a lot more. You won’t be missing anything here in this sunny and friendly place. Get some first impressions and the details after the jump.
UPDATE: This place has changed its owners and name to Berlin Soulfood. They still have lunch, dinner and breakfast, but a different menu now. We will check it out shortly and change our review.
Read on…
by Frank | Cafés, Kreuzberg, Restaurants
