I love Berlin; I’ve passed through, stayed briefly. My band played here a few times and we’ve been the guests of lovely Berliners – friends and fans of the band.
Ange is less familiar with the city, but we’re taking this time to get to know neighbourhoods, to form an impression of as many recommended areas as our little feet can cover.
Dinner/reunion with our friends first, over which they clued us up to many different potentially less expensive areas to explore. (If you’re a...
veggie, check out great ‘Indo-Mex-Cal-Ital’ food at the incredibly cheap restaurant ‘Der Imbiss’).
Some passionate conversation as we ate, agreeing over the idiocy of...
Brexit, the bemusement of most Germans at the actions of the UK, and also the head-shaking disappointment over the rise of the right in Germany. Peter is active in the SPD and is a committed social democrat. He’s also an annoyingly handsome dude and wanted...
us to go clubbing with him but bedtime beckoned. Wow, I wrote that out loud.
Peter also invited us to attend the first night of the Berlin Asian Film Festival a few nights later, curated over a year by a team of dedicated women from South East Asia and Germany. It was absolutely rammed with curious, mainly young people.
So what were we looking for in Berlin? Mixed, multicultural, reasonable property prices (we’re looking to buy a small place), relaxed, good café culture (how liberal elite of us), good access to…the best Berlin has to offer.
My friend, the lovely Inna Friesen lets Ange and I bunk in her gorgeous, classical, high-ceilinged Schöneberg apartment, more special for a nerd like me as Nick Cave used to live in the area.
Schöneberg has some great ‘vibey’ (there I said it) elements to it; Turkish community and awesome coffee (try ‘Impala’ – whoa….), some pretty cool independent stores.
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| Fine company and veggie food at Der Imbiss, Schöenberg, Berlin |
Oh wait – I said I’d limit the travelogue, didn’t I? We’re here to possibly find home.
For sure Berlin is what travel writers would refer to as a ‘creative hub’. If you don’t yet know it, the city is a mix of ‘burby bits, hipster havens and the rougher end of things and it’s pretty glorious for all that. It’s fairly left wing/centerist – with some unfortunate in-roads made by the far-right in outlying areas during the recent elections – but these are very few and far between.
Over six days, Ange and I wondered various recommended areas, all outside the ‘mitte’:
- Moabit & Wedding: ordinary, not pretty but multicultural at least; with so many areas ripe for gentrification, we were told these may be places to consider getting somewhere less expensive. Certainly no hipster barbers or artisan cupcake stores in sight yet.
- Eisenbach & Wrangelkiez (north east Kreuzberg): Much as I’d love to think of myself as a skinny hipster, that ship has long sailed. So while Kreuzberg offered a lot (and costs a fortune) we explored its ‘SO36’ Kieze (small communities in a larger town) of Eisenbach and Wrangelkiez – both fairly central, leafy squares, still a pretty ‘urban’ feel, a lovely ‘Markethalle’ where a regular organic food market is held. A few ‘bio-vegan’ and arty shops, but not gentrified-up too much as yet.
- Lichtenberg: an ordinary family area, residential, quiet areas of nice apartment blocks. ‘Tidy rather than vibey’ says my diary.
- Templehof & Neukölln: The former – an area taking in the huge ex-airfield used during the Berlin airlifts. We walked it during a downpour and got proper soaked. We walked residential areas southwest of the airfield to take in some nice apartments/houses – nothing too posh. Turkish, Greek and Italian cafes and restaurants abound – and coffee was cheap – perhaps a good indicator of how posh an area is or is about to be? Walking east out of Templehof, into Neukölln, we walked through the very pleasant, quiet little community of Schillerkiez – but like most of Neukölln these days – you’d be lucky to find anything for rent there – and property prices are creeping up as gentrification seeps in. C’est la vie.
- Charlottenburg & Friedenau – so yeah, I’ve reached a point in my life when after a busy one, I’d rather be home in leafy quiet with Netflix on the go and one of Ange’s immense salads in my lap. It’s a tough one to admit. So these areas kind of suit.
Charlottenburg: all wide, lovely boulevards, morning joggers, a tad ‘Notting Hill’ with some prices to match in the area south of Bismarkstrasse, I think. We stopped off at an ace café in North Charlottenburg where the friendly owner told us that actually property in that area wasn’t too expensive yet – (sorry this needs further investigation!). As said, South Charlottenburg is regarded as much more expensive.
Friedenau: it’s like Hampstead but much, much cheaper! Ange and I have a habit of chatting to folks in cafes to get local info and to test the waters on friendliness. And people here seem approachable and nice – not poncy and I didn’t see any badly-parked Range Rovers. So a big tick.
We couldn’t find any estate agents windows to browse, but the café owner told us we could expect to pay around 170-180K euros for a one/two bed apartment here. Word is that despite it’s overall prettiness, it’s not been caught up in price hikes as yet, so now would be a good time, if indeed buying’s your thing. Cashback! Mine’s a pint!
Wherever we eventually choose, Berlin is somewhere I will always travel back to; my fantastically welcoming friends are quite representative of the spirit of the place. There are so many indicators of a switched-on city. Yeah it’s hip as hell, but it’s also self-aware and not in love with itself. Most people rent. Cost of living – on a par with the UK in some respects (see my shortly-to-be-shared spreadsheet of doom which will help you with this, as I’ve pulled together loads of dead useful comparative prices/data from sites like Numbeo.com and Expatistan.com).
As far as city living goes, we could definitely do worse; but affordability is a factor for us, and now we head to France to plunder local resources like all good Brits.
See ya.
Tim
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