Germany · Old Town
Berlin
A self-guided walking tour of the Berlin Old Town, every street in two days.
Every street on the menu.
Every street in the Old Town of Berlin is a line of dots you collect by walking it. I have been lying in one of them for six hundred years and I am still not finished.
At a glance
Plan your walk.
- Distance
- 39.5 km
- Time
- about 11.5 hours
- Streets
- 107
- Steps
- 10 streets with steps
- Start point
- Brandenburger Tor
- Phone needed while walking
- no
- Works offline
- yes
- Expires
- never
The Old Town
Every street, drawn.
Every lane inside that line is a course. The circles are fruit.
Landmarks
What I would eat first.
Landmarks are fruit. The bigger the sight, the bigger the bonus.
Brandenburger Tor 1,500 points
The west end of the walk, and the only landmark here with a chariot parked on the roof. Everyone stops. I keep chewing.
Berliner Dom 500 points
It sits on the island with a lawn in front of it, and the roof has gone green. Copper does that, slowly. I approve of slowly.
Berliner Fernsehturm 500 points
You will not need directions to this one. Look up from almost any street in the level and it is already there, being tall at you.
Neue Wache 500 points
Small, square, and set well back among the trees, where the avenue is at its widest. Easy to walk past. I never do.
Pergamonmuseum 500 points
One of five museums packed onto a single island, with a channel of water down one side. The island is the densest stretch of the walk. Bring an appetite.
Rotes Rathaus 500 points
Red, and deliberately so. A band of terracotta wraps the ground floor and tells the city's story in pictures. I like a building that arrives with a menu.
Akademie der Künste 250 points
The one building on Pariser Platz you can see straight into. Everything else up there is stone with its face done up. This one shows you the inside.
Ebertsbrücke 250 points
A short bridge over the Spree with a name that almost everybody reads wrong. Chewy underfoot. Bridges usually are.
Gendarmenmarkt 250 points
A square with a building on three of its sides and nothing in the middle but space. Berlin does not usually hand you space. Take it.
Hackesche Höfe 250 points
You can walk straight through the middle of this one and come out on a different street. A building with a corridor in it. I approve.
Hausvogteiplatz 250 points
Small, and most people cross it without ever looking down. Something at the station entrance is worth stopping for. I am not telling you what.
Nikolaikirche 250 points
The lanes around it are the tightest chewing in the whole level. This city is mostly wide and straight. This corner forgot to be.
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin 250 points
It takes up so much of the avenue that you walk its front for a while before you reach a door. Good dots. Long building.
Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge 250 points
A museum of ordinary things: kettles, packaging, chairs, the stuff nobody thinks to keep. Objects nobody remembers, kept anyway. I find that relatable.
Eating
Actual food.
Berlin never had a kitchen of its own. It had arrivals. Huguenots, Bohemians, Silesians, later Turkish and Vietnamese cooks, and every wave left something on the menu. What the city did invent is the way it eats: standing up, off a paper tray, on the way somewhere else. That suits me. I eat standing up too, and I have been standing here a while.
With meat
Berlin has no state food register of its own, so a dish only goes on this list once three separate publishers agree about it. Plenty of Berlin cooking never clears that. Eisbein and Königsberger Klopse are both eaten here and neither is here, because the sourcing said less than the reputation did.
Currywurst
Fried sausage under curried tomato sauce, out of a paper tray, with a little wooden fork. Herta Heuwer mixed the sauce at her stand in 1949 and thought well enough of it to register it: trademark number 721319, under the name Chillup. Not many snacks have a number.
Bulette
A flat pan-fried meatball, and almost nobody in Berlin calls it a Frikadelle. The word comes from the French boulette, a little ball, and arrived with the French in the 19th century. Berlin also says Bäckerbraten and verzauberte Schrippe, an enchanted bread roll, which is the best name any food has.
Sources: Land Berlin, Berlin.de, Berlinerisch: Bulette, Duden, Bulette, DWDS, Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, Bulette
Döner Kebab
Grilled meat cut from a turning spit, folded into flat bread with salad and sauce. Kadir Nurman set up his stall in 1972 and sold it that way to people who ate while walking. Berlin calls that the invention, other claimants exist, and the city's own page says legend rather than fact. He never patented any of it. Herta Heuwer registered her sauce. Nurman registered nothing.
Sources: Land Berlin, Berlin.de, InsiderTipps: Döner Kebab ist eine Berliner Erfindung, BBC News, Doner kebab 'inventor' Kadir Nurman dies in Berlin, 26.10.2013, Wikipedia (EN), Doner kebab
Vegetarian
Two, and that is the honest count. Berlin's old meatless cooking is bread and pastry, because what was cheap here was flour and fat. The city's plant cooking arrived a great deal later and most of it is vegan rather than vegetarian, so it sits in the next band instead of this one.
Schrippe
The Berlin bread roll, named for its torn crust: geschripft. The word has been Berlin's since the late 18th century. Its relatives are the Schusterjunge, wheat and rye together, and the Splitterbrötchen, which the eastern half of the city kept.
Sources: Land Berlin, Berlin.de, Berlinerisch: Schrippe, Duden, Schrippe, DWDS, Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, Schrippe
Berliner Pfannkuchen
Fist-sized, fried in deep fat, yeast dough, jam or plum butter inside. In Berlin it is a Pfannkuchen and nothing else, because the thought of a Berliner eating a Berliner alarms people here. The flat egg kind is an Eierkuchen. And at carnival somebody always fills one with mustard.
Ask what is inside before you bite. The mustard one looks exactly like the others.
Sources: Land Berlin, Berlin.de, Berlinerisch: Pfannkuchen, Duden, Pfannkuchen, DWDS, Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, Pfannkuchen
Vegan
Both of these grow outside the city rather than in it, and that is the honest shape of Berlin's older plant food: the sandy ground around the capital is what fed it. The city's modern vegan kitchen is a separate story and a much newer one. In 2016 the tourist board counted 43 entirely vegan kitchens here, against twelve five years earlier.
Spreewälder Gurken
Gherkins from the Spreewald, an hour south, put up in vinegar and sold by the jar and by the barrel. The name has been protected across the whole EU since 1999, which is a remarkable amount of paperwork for a cucumber. Berlin eats them with everything, and straight out of the jar.
Beelitzer Spargel
White asparagus out of the sandy ground around Beelitz, south-west of the city. Sand and a dry continental climate are what make it mild rather than bitter, and the name has been protected across the EU since 2018. For a few weeks each spring Berlin thinks about very little else.
Spring only, and it ends in June. Outside the season nobody here will sell you any.
Late breakfast
Kantine im Roten Rathaus where locals go
The city hall's own canteen, in the vaulted cellar, and it is open to anyone who walks in. Stews start around four euros fifty and there is a vegetarian dish every day. The entrance is unmarked and there is no sign advertising it, which is why most Berliners have no idea it is there.
- Mon11:30–14:00
- Tue11:30–14:00
- Wed11:30–14:00
- Thu11:30–14:00
- Fri11:30–14:00
- Satclosed
- Sunclosed
Weekdays only, and lunch runs 11:30 to 14:00. Come at the weekend and the door is shut.
Sources: Tagesspiegel, Bernd Matthies, Der Kantinen-Check: Hier stärkt sich die Berliner Senatskanzlei, 16.01.2023, Berliner Zeitung, Mittagessen in Berlin? Wir haben zehn Geheimtipps für unter zehn Euro, visitBerlin, 11 times dining out under 11 euros
Afternoon coffee
Röststätte Berlin come for the one thing: the house roasted coffee
A roastery that has been at it since 2003, tucked into the Hackesche Höfe where you would expect only souvenir shops. Up to eight in ten of the people at the counter come every day, some of them twice, which is not how a courtyard full of visitors usually behaves. Plant milk and vegan food are standard here.
- Mon09:00–18:00
- Tue09:00–18:00
- Wed09:00–18:00
- Thu09:00–18:00
- Fri09:00–18:00
- Sat10:00–18:30
- Sunclosed
Closed on Sundays, which is exactly when the courtyard outside is busiest.
Sources: European Coffee Trip, Berlin city guide: Röststätte Berlin, Mit Vergnügen Berlin, 11 Cafés und Restaurants am Hackeschen Markt
The Greens where locals go
A small café in the courtyard of the Alte Münze, set up so the people working in the old mint would have somewhere to eat. The lunch is vegetarian, changes weekly and runs five or six euros. It is a few minutes off the Nikolaiviertel and nobody following the tourist route finds it.
- Mon10:00–17:00
- Tue10:00–17:00
- Wed10:00–17:00
- Thu10:00–17:00
- Fri10:00–17:00
- Sat10:00–17:00
- Sun10:00–17:00
It shuts at five, so this is a daytime stop and not a dinner one.
Sources: European Coffee Trip, Berlin city guide: The Greens, Mit Vergnügen Berlin, Urban Jungle in Mitte: Kaffee trinken im The Greens
Dinner
Trio where locals go
Slow Food's Berlin convivium calls it the good pub around the corner, and that is what it is: German and Austrian classics, seventy seats inside and a few more out. Lunch takes no reservations at all, so you can simply turn up. It is a walk north of the level, and the walk is the point.
- Mon18:00–23:00
- Tue18:00–23:00
- Wed12:00–14:30, 18:00–23:00
- Thu12:00–14:30, 18:00–23:00
- Fri12:00–14:30, 18:00–23:00
- Sat18:00–23:00
- Sun18:00–23:00
Lunch is Wednesday to Friday only. Evenings run every day of the week.
Sources: Slow Food Deutschland, Genussführer, Convivium Berlin: Trio Berlin, Mit Vergnügen Berlin, 11 wirklich gute Restaurants in Berlin Mitte
Checked 12 September 2026.
Name origin
Why it is called Berlin.
Berlin is a Slavic word for wet ground. Old Polabian birl- or berl- means swamp, and the ending -in makes a place out of it: somewhere in boggy terrain. The bear came afterwards. Somebody heard Bär inside Berlin and drew one, which is how a name turns into an animal. I have eaten this city. Underneath, it is still a little soft.
Sources: de.wikipedia.org
Why here
Somebody stood here and decided.
Two towns, one river, and a crossing in between. Berlin sat on the bank around the Nikolaikirche. Cölln sat on the island directly opposite. In 1307 they agreed to act as one: twelve aldermen from Berlin, six from Cölln, one shared town hall, and each town still keeping its own money. Only in 1432 did they become a single place. This level walks over both of them and the water between.
Sources: www.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de, www.berlin.de, www.berlin.de
Why then
When the first stone went down.
The paper says 1237. That is a parish priest called Symeon, named in a document, and the city counts it as its founding year. Berlin's own first mention follows in 1244. The ground disagrees. Oak from a well at the Petriplatz was felled around 1203, other timbers in the city centre came down in the second half of the 12th century, and a box well near the town hall dates to the 1220s, on ground nobody thought was lived on yet. Wood has the better memory. I would say that, of course.
Sources: www.berlin.de, www.berlin.de, www.hiko-berlin.de, www.berlin.de
Who ruled
Everyone who thought they owned this.
I outlasted all of them. It is the one thing I am good at.
- 1157–1320
The margraves of Brandenburg, from the house of Ascania. The towns grew up under them and put their eagle on the oldest Berlin seal. In 1307 the two towns agreed to stand together against exactly this margrave, which tells you how the arrangement was going. The line ran out of men in 1320.
Sources: www.politische-bildung-brandenburg.de, www.berlin.de
- 1411–1701
The Hohenzollern arrive, and then stay for five hundred years. Friedrich VI of Nuremberg is handed the Mark in 1411 and made Elector in 1415. One of the first things the family does with Berlin is take back the joint administration the two towns had built for themselves.
Sources: www.berlin.de
- 1701–1918
Kings. Friedrich III crowns himself Friedrich I, King in Prussia, in 1701, and Berlin becomes a royal residence. Most of what this level is made of gets built in this stretch: the avenue, the squares, the museums, the wide straight streets. In 1871 the city becomes an imperial capital and grows accordingly.
Sources: www.berlin.de, www.berlin.de
- 1945–1990
Four sectors, four occupying powers, one city administered jointly and then not jointly at all. This level sits almost entirely on the eastern side of that arrangement. It is why several buildings you will walk past were rebuilt decades after they were ruined, and why one of them is younger than the walk itself.
Sources: www.berlin.de
- 1990–
One city again, and one Land of the federal republic. Almost everything in this level has been repaired, rebuilt or reopened since. That is recent by my standards. I have been lying in lanes for six hundred years and I am still getting used to it.
Sources: www.berlin.de
The emblem
What the shield means.
A black bear standing up on a silver shield, red tongue, red claws, and a gold crown above it whose band is a wall with a gate in it. The bear had to share for a very long time. Berlin's oldest seal, from 1253, carries an eagle instead, and when two bears finally turn up in 1280 they are standing either side of the eagle's shield holding it. The eagle stayed until 1920. And the bear wore a collar, until the magistrate voted in 1875 to let it go without.
Sources: www.berlin.de
Emblem: Public domain — official coat of arms (Wikimedia Commons)
Three facts
Three things I know about this place.
The Mühlendamm is the reason for everything. It went across the Spree in the 13th century as a weir between the two towns, and holding the water back meant mills, from about 1220, which is where the street's name comes from. It also meant every boat had to stop. There was no lock until 1578, so goods came off at the dam and were handled here whether the merchant liked it or not. A town can get rich on an inconvenience.
Sources: www.berlin.de
Unter den Linden began as a modest avenue to a hunting ground. That is all it was: a way for the Great Elector to get from his palace out to the Tiergarten. What you walk today is a rebuild. The city decided the street should go back up by a rule book, the Lindenstatut, keeping the old building lines and the old eaves heights, so the avenue kept its shape even where the houses are new. Walk it and you are walking a measurement.
Sources: denkmaldatenbank.berlin.de
Berlin as a shape on a map is younger than Berlin as a town. On 1 October 1920 eight separate towns, 59 villages and 27 estates were put together into one city of twenty districts, and the population doubled overnight to about 3.8 million. Everything this level covers was already old by then. What you walk here is the original mouthful, not the whole plate.
Sources: www.berlin.de
Street words
What the names on the signs mean.
- Straße
- The plain word for a street, and 55 of the 113 here end in it. Berlin does not go in for poetry in its street names. Berlin goes in for length.
- Graben
- A channel of water. Am Kupfergraben runs along the museum island, Am Zwirngraben under the railway arches, Am Festungsgraben past the theatre. Water shaped this place long before anyone paved it.
- Damm
- A causeway raised across wet ground. Mühlendamm and Am Weidendamm both say the same thing: somebody had to build this up before anyone could walk on it.
- Ufer
- The bank. Reichstagufer, Spreeufer, Vera-Brittain-Ufer. Streets that admit the river is the reason they bend.
- Markt
- A market square that kept the word in its name. Gendarmenmarkt, Hackescher Markt, Werderscher Markt. Three squares, three completely different widths.
- Gasse
- A lane, and Berlin has nearly run out of them. Seven here, among them Sperlingsgasse, Spreegasse and Heiligegeistgasse. Narrow is rare in this town, so I take my time over it.
- Brücke
- A bridge, and seven of them count as streets here. Water runs straight through the middle of this level, so you will cross it more than once.
The size of it
Walk it in a day: Berlin in numbers.
Counted from the streets in the level itself, not from a guidebook.
- 107streets
- 2,029dots
- 31.1km of street
- 39.5km on foot
- 11.3hours at a stroll
Nearby
Old Towns close to this one.
The game
Your first city is free.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone. Claim any city as your free one. Every other city is a one-time purchase you keep for good, Family Sharing included, and a city you own plays fully offline.