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A Berlin classic, this 1970s retro bar is very popular and always packed. It serves some of the best cocktails in the city.

This Berlin classic never goes out of style. A young urban crowd enjoys some of the best drinks and cocktails money can buy in Germany (the Mojito is a particular delight), mingling at the minimalist retro-style bar and along the curved, green walls. At weekends, the place is packed to bursting. There’s an outdoor bell, but the door policy is pretty liberal as long as you look sober.

Home-made cakes make the little café diagonally opposite Nikolaikirche an irresistible stopping point.

Not the most beautiful street of Old Berlin, but one of the best preserved.

This famous Berlin theatre for children and young people has been showing the hit musical Linie 1 for over ten years. The play, which is best suited to older children and adolescents, tells of the exciting life in the big city, using a U-Bahn line running from East to West Berlin as a metaphor.

Covering 766 ha (1,900 acres), Berlin’s largest lake is situated in the far southeast of the city. Berliners have nicknamed it the “large bathtub” – a good description, for thousands of Berliners congregate here in the heat of summer for a refreshing dip. You can also row, sail or surf on the lake (see Berlin’s Southeast) .

Großer Müggelsee, known as Berlin’s “bathtub”, is the largest of the city’s lakes, covering an area of 766 hectares (1,892 acres). Müggelsee is not as popular as Großer Wannsee, its West Berlin counterpart, mainly because it is so far from the centre, in the southeast corner of the city. The lake is known for the beer gardens on its south side, which can be reached by boat from Friedrichshagen. Further south, Müggelturm (tower) offers magnificent views over Berlin and the surrounding Brandenburg province. All around the lake there are excellent paths for walking and cycling. You can also swim in the lake, for example at the beach resort of Rahnsdorf.

The Großer Tiergarten is Berlin’s largest park, straddling an area of 200 hectares (494 acres) between the eastern and western halves of the town. Formerly the Elector’s hunting grounds, it was redesigned in the 1830s as a park by Peter Joseph Lenné. At the end of the 19th century, the Siegesallee was established in the east of the park, more than 500 m (1640 ft) in length, lined by the statues of monarchs and politicians. After World War II, the starving and freezing population chopped down nearly all the trees for firewood and dug up the lawns to grow food. Thanks to reforestation work since the 1950s, Tiergarten today has become Berlin’s favourite green space and the lungs of the city.

Tiergarten – the green lungs of Berlin – is the most famous park in the city. It covers an area of 203 ha (500 acres) and is situated right in the centre of town. Originally designed, in 1833–40, by Peter Joseph Lenné as a hunting estate for the Elector, in the latter half of the 19th century the park became a recreation ground for all Berliners. Today it attracts a happy crowd of cyclists, joggers, sunbathers and Turkish families having barbecues, especially at weekends.