UKC

Going to Berlin end of April and have managed to book an extra day / day and a half to do some sight seeing

Any recommendations?

also looking for accommodation for a mixed party of about 10 people... any hot tips for the city? The main event we are going to seems to be about 1 km north of the city center so quite central

In reply to rallymania:

I really liked berlin for a weekend break.
We stayed 80m from check point Charlie in a nice, tidy, clean and not so expensive hotel. But berlins a bit big to say you can easily reach everywhere from one location on foot, the trains are good and easy once you've figured it out.....
Things to do, as a group the adlon hotel (next to brandenburg gate and famous for children being waved over balconies by michael jackson) high tea might be nice for a daytime social, though you may need to book for a larger table.

Besides this, plenty of tourist things, all well documented.

In reply to rallymania:

Take an alternative walking tour, you'll see so much more of Berlin that way.
http://alternativeberlin.com/tours/free-tour/

Visit a WW2 bunker or flak tower - very humbling and thought provoking, and it *is* a genuine German bunker that you're in
http://berliner-unterwelten.de/home.1.1.html

Explore the old East German area of Friedrichshain - great culture, bars, restaurants and very unique shops
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/germany/berlin/friedrichshain

Berlin is awesome, you'll need many return visits to do it justice

In reply to rallymania:

The Stasi museum is brilliant. As is the Liquidrom spa.

In reply to rallymania:

I enjoyed the DDR museum.

In reply to rallymania:

I was in a similar situation a couple of years ago and had a day or so too look around by myself before doing work stuff. I was on foot and was able to walk around most of the stuff that is more centrally located. If you are used to long crag walk-ins you'll be fine.

My hotel was towards the north-east of the city so I started wondering towards the Berliner Dom (cathedral), had a look round that then headed towards Checkpoint Charlie, there are several more churches and political buildings with impressive architecture between the cathedral and then checkpoint. There was an interesting museum thing near check-point Charlie that gave a good idea of what things were like when the wall was there.
Then you can wonder west a bit to the Topographie des Terrors, which is a long section of the wall on which they have documented a history of the Nazi atrocities and the events leading up to them (its free). One thing that really stuck me about berlin is how humble and open they are about their past, they don't try and pretend these events didn't happen and hide them away, everything as out in the open as a lesson to future generations.

The you can wonder north towards the Jewish Memorial which is well worth looking around, and I would highly recommend going into the visits centre beneath the memorial. Don't expect to come out of it laughing and smiling, but it was incredibly moving and thought provoking. One of the exhibits consisted of letters written by Jews in the camps to their families and these had me (a grown man) crying my eyes out.

After that you are pretty close to Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (I didn't have tome to go in unfortunately).

Another thing that was highly entertaining was the 'trabby tours', where you dive around in a convoy of Trabants (the old East German cars) and a guide tells you about the sights over the radio. I cannot describe how bad these cars are to drive but they are also hilarious and a novel way to see the city.

Enjoy your trip. Would be interested to her what you end up getting up to.

In reply to rallymania:
Bundestag (formerly Reichstag but don't call it that!) - you can visit the Norman Foster cupola
Brandenburg Gate
Walk along Unter den Linden to Berliner Dom & Museum Island
TV tower for views if the weather is good
Hackesche Höfe


Assuming you mean north of Unter Den Linden rather than north of Ku'damm

Maritim ProArte central but slightly north of Unter den Llinden.

In reply to elsewhere:

If you want to go to the Bundestag cupola, book ahead online!

In reply to elsewhere:
thanks all for the excellent suggestions so far

the venue for the main weekend activity is the KulturBrauerei

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Kulturbrauerei/@52.5387096,13.4116643,1...

In reply to two_tapirs:

I think you can kill two birds and visit a flak tower and get some climbing done!
youtube.com/watch?v=N_EZ5VIgbDU&

In reply to rallymania:

I go there quite a lot with work but mainly see the office, airport, hotel and the odd restaurant. However we recently did as a team activity a cycling tour of the old Berlin wall sites (they do other tours, we only had a couple of hours free) which was very very good indeed. The city is small and flat enough to make this untaxing and I found some of the hidden, and not so hidden sights fascinating.

https://berlinonbike.de/en/

It took me quite a while to warm to the place but now I really like. Maybe if I'd first gone as a tourist I might have made more of an effort.