Berlin with kids

Berlin is a great city to visit with kids. You will find plenty to do whatever the weather. With hundreds of playgrounds, two zoos, two aquariums, leafy parks, lakes and great museums, your kids will not be bored! 

OUTDOORS

Playgrounds (in German Spielplatz or Spielplätze plural)

Berlin has hundreds of playgrounds scattered around the city.

If your child needs a break from sightseeing or shopping, you will not need to search long to find a playground. Type in Spielplatz into an online map service to find the one closest to you.

Spielplatz am Heinrich-Lassen-Park

Some of the best playgrounds in Berlin are

Hirschhof Spielplatz (Prenzlauer Berg) – close to the Mauerpark.

Spielplatz am Wasserturm (Prenzlauer Berg) – it’s very close to Kollwitzplatz; green and child-friendly neighbourhood with lots of nice cafes.

Spielplatz am Kollwitzplatz (Prenzlauer Berg) – visit the market on a Thursday afternoon or on a Saturday.

Blauer Spielplatz (Mitte) – inside the Weinsberg Park, where you can get a bite to eat of a proper meal at the cafe/restaurant in the middle of the park.

Spielplatz am Monbijoupark (Mitte) – close to Museum Island.

Tiergarten – there are several playgrounds at different ends of the park; you could combine it with a visit to the Reichstag, Potsdamer Platz, the Zoo or the Aquarium.

Volkspark Friedrichshain (Prenzlauer Berg/Friedrichshain) – there are three playgrounds; this park gets very busy at the weekend.

Gleisdreieck Park (Kreuzberg) head to the Museum of Technology first and the stop off for lunch or dinner at the Brlo Brewery.

Spielplatz am Heinrich-Lassen-Park (Schöneberg) – brand-new playground with a castle. It’s right next to a swimming pool with a small outdoor pool and close to Volkspark Schöneberg-Wilmersdorf. It’s only a short walk from Rathaus Schoeneberg, where John F. Kennedy gave his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner speech”. Meanwhile, David Bowie fans might like to head to Hauptstraße 155, where the great artist lived between 1976 and 1978. There is a memorial plaque outside the building.

On a hot day, look for a Wasserspielplatz, a playground with water.

Swimming pools and lakes 

Some of the best outdoor pools (in German Freibad or Sommerbad) and lakes are

Kinderbad Monbijou (Mitte) – best for small children.

Sommerbad Pankow (Pankow) – good for all ages: there is a paddling pool for the little ones, a swimming pool for older ones and a leisure pool with slides and diving boards; it can get very crowded on a hot day and at the weekends, but there’s plenty of space on the lawn. 

Freibad Orankesee

Strandbad Weissensee (Weissensee) – good for swimming, sunbathing, having a drink and hanging out with the locals.

Freibad Orankesee (Hohenschönhausen) – good for swimming, sunbathing and avoiding tourists. There is a spacious and shady Biergarten nearby.  

Schlachtensee (Zehlendorf) – beautiful lake surrounded by trees located in the posh area of Berlin. There is a large beer garden and adjacent playground. It gets crowded at the weekends, especially close to the S-Bahn station.

Parks

Tiergarten – the city’s green lung. There are plenty of paths and hidden treasures to discover, as well as two nice beer gardens where you can stop off for lunch or a drink: Café am Neuen See and Schleusenkrug.

Volkspark Friedrichshain – large park with playgrounds, cafes and a beer garden but gets very crowded with local Berliners at the weekends.

Gleisdreieck – former wasteland converted into a park. I’ve written about it in the past.

Tempelhof – the old airport runway has been transformed into a huge park; very popular with the locals. Read my previous entry.

Mauerpark – get there early on a Sunday to avoid the crowds and visit the flee market; the karaoke starts at 3pm and will keep your older kids entertained. I’ve also written about this in the past.

Schloss Charlottenburg – visit the castle and/or walk, play, run in the grounds. 

INDOORS

Labyrinth Kindermuseum

Museum für Naturkunde (Natural History Museum)

Don’t miss the dinosaurs! Tristan Otto is the only original skeleton of a T. Rex in Europe to date.

Deutsches Technikmuseum (German Museum of Technology)

The museum has a huge collection of steam engines and is also a great place for plane and boat lovers. Don’t miss the Rosinenbomber on the top terrace!

Spectrum Science Centre

The Science Centre makes science fun for children. It is just across from the Museum of Technology and tickets are valid for same-day visits to both the museum and Spectrum.

Labyrinth Kindermuseum (Wedding) – the former factory has been converted into a spacious children’s museum, with a special focus on diversity. There are different areas and lots of things to discover and to play with. Aspiring chefs will love the large kitchen area.

Kindermuseum MachMit (Prenzlauer Berg) – housed in a former church, the large museum offers endless opportunities for playing, climbing and learning through play. There is also a cinema. The current exhibition, which has been extended to June 2019, focuses on Native American culture.

Legoland – housed in a basement on Potsdamer Platz, it’s noisy and expensive, with only artificial light. Parents hate it, but kids love it. Best to avoid at the weekend.

Zoo – it’s one of Berlin’s most popular attractions both with adults and children so it gets very busy, especially at the weekends.

Tierpark – not to be confused with the Tiergarten. The Tierpark is Europe’s biggest animal park and is in the Eastern part of Berlin.

Aquarium – the entrance is next to the Zoo. It’s a good place for the little ones and for fish and/or reptile lovers. Don’t miss the sharks! You can get a combined ticket for the zoo and the aquarium.

Sealife – it’s smaller and narrower than the aquarium. The best part is the lift that takes you into the AquaDom at the end: the massive aquarium inside the Radisson Blu Hotel lobby. It’s cheaper if you buy tickets online.

Berlin boat trip – the one-hour boat trip along the Spree is probably the best option for smaller kids. They tend to get bored after a while!

From lockdown through flockdown to touchdown

The worst months of the year are over as far as I’m concerned. 

January was a very dreary month; it felt as if it would never end. Lockdown fatigue was at its highest and it wasn’t easy to find reasons to feel cheerful. February, on the contrary, provided some well-needed distraction from the coronavirus pandemic, courtesy of the unpredictable Berlin weather. This was in spite of the lockdown and in spite of the absence of the Berlin Film Festival (if all goes well, we will have the chance to watch the films in cinemas in June!). Carnival is never a big deal in Berlin, so we didn’t really miss it and we could still eat Pfannkuchen. This year there was a new variation: the Impfung (or vaccination) Pfannkuchen, with a complementary syringe.

First, we had an extremely cold spell in early February, with snow showers and temperatures plummeting to as low as -18ºC, turning Berlin into a winter wonderland and a playground for winter sports. A new word was born: Flockdown (a combination of Schneeflocke – or snowflake - and lockdown). All the snowy slopes were taken over by kids and adults sledging downhill. Some people were even seen skiing on the white city streets. Smiles returned to Berliner’s faces and the sound of laughter could be heard again. Sledges and other sliding devices were completely sold out (online and in shops where you could click and collect; the retail sector remained closed). 

After several days of freezing temperatures, all the lakes, rivers and canals in Berlin froze over, including the lake in Weissensee, which turned into a temporary ice rink, with skaters performing pirouettes and ice hockey players competing in serious matches. We even saw a family, presumably hungry after all the ice-skating action, grilling sausages on the frozen lake! The police, however, were not convinced that it was safe to tread on the frozen surfaces and their helicopters flew low over the lakes at the weekend to send people away. 

One week later, climate change alarm bells were ringing. Temperatures soared to +18ºC and the sun was shining. Berliners could hardly believe it. They ditched their woolly hats and scarves for their picnic blankets and flocked to the park (over 5,000 people congregated in Mauerpark on a Sunday afternoon). The police this time were busy trying to keep order and making sure the coronavirus regulations were being observed. For instance, it is still verboten to drink alcohol in parks in Berlin. Meanwhile, the birds were very confused by the sudden swing in temperatures and cranes (in German Kraniche) were heard emitting their distinctive calls while migrating north.

The end of February saw the first relaxation of the strict lockdown measures. Primary schools reopened, to parents’ delight, but only for pupils in years one, two and three, and classes were divided into two groups. In some schools children go every day for three hours, while in others they attend for two or three mornings a week. My son now spends half the week at school and half the week being home-schooled; this is known as Wechselunterricht. The situation is similar to when schools restarted after the first lockdown last spring, but there are some differences.  For instance, it is now compulsory to wear a face mask everywhere on school grounds, including in classrooms and in the playground. Meanwhile, nurseries are reopening on 9 March and more pupils will also go back to school next week. 

Hairdressers and barbers reopened on 1 March and queues quickly built up outside their shops, as people were desperate for a haircut. The lockdown has been extended until 28 March so everything else is still closed, but there will be some relaxation from next week. For example, from 8 March, up to five people from two households will be allowed meet, with children under 14 not counted.

By the way, Flockdown was not the only word to be invented during the pandemic. The Leibniz Institute for the German Language has compiled a list  of over 1,000 new words coined over the past year. These include AHA-Regel, which I have already written about, Coronaangst (anxiety about the coronavirus), Coronaeltern (parents challenged by the Covid regulations) CoronaFußgruß (foot greeting to replace the handshake), Coronaparty, Fashionmaske (fashion face mask), Homeclubbing, Klopapierhamster (toilet paper panic buyer), Querdenker (Covid denier who doesn’t follow the restriction measures) and overzoomed (stressed out by too many Zoom calls). I’m surprised there isn’t a word to describe a parent exhausted by the challenges of home schooling. Are you feeling homeschooledout? 

Finally, one of the highlights of the winter lockdown for me was watching the Mars landing. We were glued to the NASA YouTube channel on the evening of 18 February, as we followed the Perseverance rover approach Mars and then successfully touch down on the red planet. It was more exciting than any show I've seen on Netflix lately!

Life in lockdown: week six

Another exhausting week of lockdown and homeschooling is over. The biggest challenge, in addition to trying to master German grammar (is it really necessary to use the word Selbslaut when the self-evident term Vokal is also in the dictionary? Somebody really ought to have a word with German schoolbook writers!) has been getting our energetic seven-year-old to fall asleep at night. 

Sleep, or rather lack therof, has always been a sore point in our family; the last time I had a decent night’s sleep was eight years ago. With playgrounds and sports facilities still closed, I resorted to YouTube fitness videos for kids, hours of bouncing on a trampoline, running, sprinting and cycling. Unfortunately, long walks no longer do the trick and my yoga classes are unappealing. We’ve also been putting an alarm every morning and waking up earlier and earlier. At least the weather has been consistently good, with five more days of uninterrupted sunshine. The weekend was a different story. We couldn’t believe it when we woke up to a grey sky on Saturday.

Spring is the season of awakening, as Berliners know all too well. The combination of endless sunshine and lockdown has meant that this year the feeling of renewed life and energy is stronger than ever. On Wednesday we cycled through Prenzlauer Berg to the central district of Mitte. There were people everywhere: taking pictures of the cherry blossoms close to Bornholmer Strasse, admiring the “Lord of the Rings/Ice Age”-inspired street art in Mauerpark (Gollum’s precious toilet paper stolen by Scrat the squirrel), queueing up  –  at a distance – for ice cream, sitting on the steps of the Bode Museum –  currently closed –  or soaking up the sunshine on the banks of the Spree river.

The Spree river seen from Museum Island.

The high number of Berliners out and about can be explained by an easing of the lockdown restrictions this week. The biggest change in Berlin is that we no longer need a good reason to leave the house so we are allowed to move freely within the city, as long as we keep a 1.5 m distance from others. As before, we are only allowed to be with members of our own household or with another person from a different household (so that means two people 1.5 m apart). Gatherings of up to 20 people are permitted, but only for funerals and baptisms. Masks are now compulsory on public transport, though even a scarf will do, as long as you keep your mouth and nose covered. Still no parties or barbecues in the park, but quite a few shops have reopened. Once again, I have to acknowledge that it’s difficult to keep up with all the changes, especially as they are not always reported correctly in the media.

Unfortunately, this newfound freedom has meant that thieves also don’t need a good reason to leave their houses, as I discovered one morning when my bike saddle was stolen. So, no more bike rides for me until my new saddle arrives. On a positive side, bike shops have remained open throughout the lockdown to enable Berliners to keep on cycling.

Last week I was feeling rather stressed and under pressure to be more productive, when most of the time all I wanted was to read a book in the sunshine, while sipping a cup of tea. And I really couldn’t be bothered with cleaning or baking. This week, however, I have felt more energetic and I have tried to involve my son in some house chores. We were very proud of our first ever homemade bread. (We actually found a bag of flour in the supermarket! Still no toilet paper though.) We cleaned the floor together and tried to turn it into a fun activity. Being in lockdown is a challenge, but it also has some good sides. Perhaps one day I might even find the time to work on my second novel.

Are German parents more laid-back?

Sand + water = lots of fun

As a mother with a British/Italian background living in Berlin, I often find myself observing and comparing different parenting styles.  When I first started taking my child to the playgrounds in Berlin I was struck by how relaxed some German mothers (and fathers) appeared to be.  They let their children roam free through the playground, while they chatted at the edge of the sandpit and often did not even check on their little ones (or so it seemed at the time).

At the playground with Papa

Once when our son was about a year and a half, my husband* came home from the playground saying that some mothers had actually teased him for being too anxious and following our son wherever he went.  One mother claimed that she only looked up if her children were crying and/or covered in blood, otherwise she would simply let them get on with it.  Another mother also laughed at what she called “the anxious first-time father”.

So are German parents more laid-back? Fast-forward a year or so.  I am at the playground trying my best to adopt the “let your child get on with it” attitude, while chatting with one of these mothers. Suddenly her son starts crying and in a matter of seconds she is by his side, has picked him up and is soothing him.  This is not her first child by the way.  There is no blood in sight; in fact, the child does not seem to be hurt at all.  About 15 minutes later, the same situation is repeated.**

Last summer my child went away for two nights with his Italo-German nursery.  It was the first time my three-year-old had been away from home without his parents or grandparents. Obviously I was anxious and I regularly checked my phone in case of any missed calls or messages, but otherwise I just assumed that things were going well.  Guess who called the holiday resort to check if the children had arrived safely?  No, it was not an Italian mother or father; it was a German parent.  So in my experience German parents may have a more relaxed approach to parenting, but deep down they are just as worried about their kids as everyone else.

*   He has a German passport.

** I would have done the same thing, but I am not the one pretending to be cool and relaxed.