The following suggestions are grouped under architecture, art and  history themes – chop and change as suits your interests.

ARCHITECTURE

Private Tour Idea: Architecture: Schinkel's Berlin to the new Potsdamer Platz and German Government Quarter with Insider Guide and qualified Architect Ben Allen.

Since German Unification, Berlin has experienced a building boom  comparable in scale only to that of Shanghai; it has been an awe-inspiring  undertaking of construction of heroic proportions. Many of the flagship  projects lie in a relatively compact area following the  line of where the Wall once stood in the city centre. From the new central station in the north to  Potsdamer Platz in the south, an incredible ensemble of internationally  renowned architects have left their mark. In a morning’s walk one can quite easily see: the monumental new Government Quarter; the rebuilt Pariser Platz with the new Academy of Art and Frank Gehry’s DG Bank; Peter  Eisemann’s massive Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe; and the new Potsdamer Platz which is completely indicative of how the city would like to present itself to the world in the new century and for that reason is a  must-see.

best BUILDINGS

    •    Schinkel’s Altes Museum – his masterpiece.
    •    Werner March's newly  refurbished Olympic Stadium –  hosted the monumental Olympics of Nazi Germany in 1936 and the final of the 2006  World Cup in the modern free and friendly Germany. 
    •    Karl Marx Allee – Stalinesque urban planning on a monumental scale.
    •    Berliner Philharmonie –  take a free tour at 1 pm each day  of this expressionist landmark.
    •    Palast der Republik –  The old East German parliament come bowling alley – view the final remnants now  before this important part of Berlins history is completely demolished
    •    The Jewish Museum – by the architect (Daniel  Libeskind) who is designing the World Trade Centre replacement.

Private Tour Idea: Architecture: Stalinist Monumentalism, Nazi neo Classicism & the new Berlin with Insider Guide and qualified Architect Ben Allen.


ART

Private Tour Idea: From the Old to the New National Gallery with Insider Tour Guide Tarek Ibrahim

The newly restored Old National Gallery.  Early director Hugo von Tschudi  caused a scandal here in the early twentieth century by exhibiting French  Impressionism.  The museum was namely designed as the museum for  GERMAN art.  The extensive nineteenth century collection shows the transformation of Prussian history into a German identity as well as the traditional German longing for the South.  Thanks to von Tschudi, the museum still also boasts some highlights of French Impressionism.  Includes works from  Casper David Friedrich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Auguste Renoir,  Edouard Manet, Claude Monet and Lovis Corinth.

The Brücke Museum: is a must for anyone interested in German  Expressionism. Berlin was the home and inspiration of the Brücke artists who moved here around 1912.  Leading Brücke artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner immortalized Berlin’s decadence in the Weimar Republic with his street  scenes and prostitutes, then mentally collapsed with the fall the German Empire and went on permanent recovery in Switzerland.  The museum is  dedicated exclusively to Kirchner and his colleagues with thematic shows in an intimate setting in Berlin’s villa district.   

The Gemäldegalerie or Painting Gallery: is Berlin’s best kept secret.  Nestled in the Cultural Forum near the Potsdamer Platz, the museum shows masterpiecesfrom the early Renaissance to late Baroque.  It’s one of the best painting collections worldwide and includes works by Caravaggio, Botticelli, Rubens and Rembrandt.  The collection was organized and built up by  Prussian  museum director Wilhelm von Bode, split up after World War II and now can be seen together once again. In contrast to the museums in London, Paris or New York, you can view the paintings here without any of the crowds.   

Further down on the Cultural Forum is Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s temple to Modernism, The New National Gallery (Die Neue Nationalgalerie).  Bauhaus architect van der Rohe was inspired by the Neo-Classical minimalism of the Old Museum, designed by Berlin’s greatest architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and transformed it into the language of Modern architecture: steel and glass.  Here you find master works of German Expressionism and New Objectivity.  

Private Tour Idea: A visit to some of Berlin's most illustrious private collections from the Bergruen to the Frick at the Hamburger Bahnhof and then a visit to Mitte's boutique gallery district with Insider Tour Guide  Tarek Ibrahim

Also note:

The Museum of the Present in the Hamburger Bahnhof exhibits one of the most important collections of contemporary art in Berlin, with works by Andy Warhol, Cy Tombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and Joseph Beuys.

The Deutsche Guggenheim – a corporate gallery exhibits the most prominent names in Modern Art and is free on Monday.

The Berlinische Gallery: Museum for Modern Art, Photography and  Architecture is also brilliant: if you don’t have time to visit a range of museums or galleries this documents Berlin’s creative landscape of the last 120 years nicely – from painting to building, from Dada works to  architecture  models of the new German President’s Office. This has actually filled a gap amidst Berlin’s plethora of museums which is saying something!


HISTORY


    •    WWII / 3rd Reich

Private Tour Idea: The Third Reich: the rise and fall with Insider Tour Guide & former British Military Attache to the Soviets Nigel Dunkley.

The German Russian Museum: Here on the 8th of May 1945 World War II was brought to an end with the  surrender of the German Wehrmacht. The rooms have been left as they were that historic day making the events all the more tangible. It also documents the  particularly brutal battles that were fought between the German and Soviet troops as a result of National  Socialist ideology, aiming at the enslavement and eventual extinction of the Slavic people. Initially only accessible to the Red Army,  it is now open to the  general public, take advantage of this most significant place and exhibition of WWII.

Other worthwhile museums / exhibitions of the Third Reich and WWII include:

the Topography of Terror –  a  documentation of the SS and Gestapo displayed on the site of its former head quarters;

the Gedenkstätte  Plötzensee – the prison memorial where the Nazis executed mainly political opponents; 

the German  resistance memorial the Gedenkstätte Deutscher  Widerstand  – which documents the July 20th  assassination attempt on Hitler and effort to overthrow the National Socialist regime. Significantly this was  also the site of Hitler’s  Lebensraum speech in 1933.


    •    Potsdam

Private Tour Idea: Frederick the Great to the Potsdam Conference with Insider Tour Guide & former British Military Attache to the Soviets Nigel Dunkley.

Capital of Brandenburg, Arcadia of  Prussia’s Kings and a great place for taking a dip –  even naked! This is a treasure that should not be missed. The rise of Prussia as one of the great powers of  Europe is reflected in the Palaces that decorate the hundreds of acres of it's landscaped gardens. In effect this is Berlin’s Versailles. Approximately 20 minutes away from any of Berlin’s central main stations - take the regional train to Potsdam Hauptbahnhof.

Once  there visit the Potsdam Tourist Office to get your  bearings but it is easy enough to navigate yourself through the old town. Visit the Neues Palais  (adorned with so many statues they had to be industrially  produced), the Chinese Tea House  and Frederick the Great’s Palace Sansoucci – scene to Europe’s most   renowned Soldier King’s evening flute concertos and philosophical discussions with house guest Voltaire.

A little further on discover the Cecilienhof Palace of Wilhelm II which hosted the Potsdam Conference of Churchill, Stalin and Truman. Today it is a hotel with accompanying museum, here too, like the German Russian Museum, the rooms have been left as they were, in which (essentially) the fate of Cold War Europe was decided upon. The adjoining restaurant is ideal for an afternoon tea or Hefe Weizen amongst the gardens of the last Kaiser. Take a dip afterwards in the crystal watered Holy Lake, its perfect for a summer swim.  (Most locals don't even bother with bathing costumes – don't be shy!) 


    •    Cold War

Private Tour Idea: Behind the Iron Curtain Tour with Insider Tour Guide & former British Military Attache to the Soviets Nigel Dunkley.

Other worthwhile museums / exhibitions of the Cold War and divided Berlin include:

the Wall Museum – House at Checkpoint Charlie which charts the history  of the Wall and the remarkable stories of escape  attempts from the GDR –  exhibiting some of the  contraptions used in the process;

the Allied Museum which documents the Berlin Airlift with photos, film, uniforms, planes, weapons and the real Checkpoint Charlie hut;

the Stasi Museum –  maybe you’ve read Stasiland? Checkout the former offices of the GDR’S secret police chief Erich Mielke, complete with his old uniform hanging in the wardrobe  and the Stasi’s tools of the trade i.e. camera and listening devices in books and pot plants etc. The surveillance of the world’s most policed state was (in essence) orchestrated from here.

Evening idea: late afternoon check out the Van Loon barge on the water in Kreuzberg for a beer in the sun, head to a restaurant in the area i.e. Hasir or Austria and finish up with a club or bar, if it’s your last night perhaps checkout the  Watergate, one of the hottest clubs in town