Hello to Berlin: the Brandenburg Gate
A secret to unlocking at least two north European capitals, Berlin and Amsterdam, is the bicycle. Amsterdam is famous for the two-wheeler, but with Berlin, you think of the Wall, then of no Wall, Norman Foster’s cupola on the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, perhaps Italy vs France in the 2006 World Cup Final (with Zidane’s entertaining head-butt)—but bikes?
Most of the city’s streets are, for a start, laid out with ample bike lanes. Cycling down Straße des 17 Juni through the Brandenburg Gate, on to Unter den Linden and up into Prenzlauer Berg is one of the most endorphin-inducing pleasures Germany can offer. Bikes for hire are plentiful.
Berlin is stretched out but flat, which makes cycling fun and the best way to see things. In the west, you can play vélo-boulevardier through Schöneberg, with a café or Kneipe (pub) on every corner. Try Lenzig on Eisenacher Straße for a typical Berlin café. Going east into Kreuzberg, the Viktoriapark is a must; then cross the River Spree by the fairytale Oberbaumbrücke—once the east-west border—and head, via funky Friedrichshain, to one of Berlin’s most atmospheric museums: the German-Russian Museum in Karlshorst, where the war ended with the German surrender in May 1945.
Cycling in Amsterdam is different. There are no bike lanes—just, as one Amsterdammer told me, “lanes in the head.” Rules, quite strict in Berlin, remain unspoken here. Collisions are amazingly rare—but watch out for tram lines. Dutch cycling will also make you fit: Amsterdam’s many little canal bridges require special heft to ride over.
A link between the two cities is art. Berlin’s wonderful collection of old master paintings in the Gemäldegalerie is matched by Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, while Berlin’s leading modern art museum, the Neue Nationalgalerie, finds its Dutch counterpart in the Stedelijk Museum. Away from the usual tourist-jammed places—the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum—the Museum Van Loon is the city’s most perfectly preserved canal house. Its painting, Jan Miense Molenaer’s The Four Ages of the Five Senses (1630) will have you singing over every canal you subsequently cross.
On and around Van Woustraat to the south there’s the fabulous market on Albert Cuypstraat, lots of rough pubs and the inevitable “coffeehouses”—dope for sale—and a small, always-crowded tapas bar called Siempre (Sweelinckstraat 23). Which brings me to Madrid (ideal for walking round). Madrid in fact has no tapas bars: the concept is an Anglo-German-Dutch invention brought back from holidays on the costas. In a Madrid bar, you order a drink which might come with a little free bite to eat; if you’re with someone and want something bigger, share a ración. Then do it again elsewhere, as many times as you like.
The most old-fashioned watering-hole in the city centre, where only olives, nuts and dried tuna are on offer, is La Venencia (Calle de Echegaray 7). The point of La Venencia, meaning something like “testing rod,” is its sherry. After a long day at Madrid’s finest galleries—the Prado, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia or the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum—this dark, woody hideaway is ideal for enjoying the Andalusian nectar direct from the barrel.
Art, of course, is also one of Madrid’s attractions. Alongside the aforementioned standard collections the Sorolla Museum (Paseo del General Martínez Campos 37), named after turn-of-the-century Valencian painter Joaquín Sorolla, contains brilliant canvases of rustic and family Spanish life which have generally been overshadowed by Dalí, Miró and friends. This is a restful townhouse retreat. Madrid is exuberant and edgy, but it can also be very tiring.
A secret to unlocking at least two north European capitals, Berlin and Amsterdam, is the bicycle. Amsterdam is famous for the two-wheeler, but with Berlin, you think of the Wall, then of no Wall, Norman Foster’s cupola on the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, perhaps Italy vs France in the 2006 World Cup Final (with Zidane’s entertaining head-butt)—but bikes?
Most of the city’s streets are, for a start, laid out with ample bike lanes. Cycling down Straße des 17 Juni through the Brandenburg Gate, on to Unter den Linden and up into Prenzlauer Berg is one of the most endorphin-inducing pleasures Germany can offer. Bikes for hire are plentiful.
Berlin is stretched out but flat, which makes cycling fun and the best way to see things. In the west, you can play vélo-boulevardier through Schöneberg, with a café or Kneipe (pub) on every corner. Try Lenzig on Eisenacher Straße for a typical Berlin café. Going east into Kreuzberg, the Viktoriapark is a must; then cross the River Spree by the fairytale Oberbaumbrücke—once the east-west border—and head, via funky Friedrichshain, to one of Berlin’s most atmospheric museums: the German-Russian Museum in Karlshorst, where the war ended with the German surrender in May 1945.
Cycling in Amsterdam is different. There are no bike lanes—just, as one Amsterdammer told me, “lanes in the head.” Rules, quite strict in Berlin, remain unspoken here. Collisions are amazingly rare—but watch out for tram lines. Dutch cycling will also make you fit: Amsterdam’s many little canal bridges require special heft to ride over.
A link between the two cities is art. Berlin’s wonderful collection of old master paintings in the Gemäldegalerie is matched by Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, while Berlin’s leading modern art museum, the Neue Nationalgalerie, finds its Dutch counterpart in the Stedelijk Museum. Away from the usual tourist-jammed places—the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum—the Museum Van Loon is the city’s most perfectly preserved canal house. Its painting, Jan Miense Molenaer’s The Four Ages of the Five Senses (1630) will have you singing over every canal you subsequently cross.
On and around Van Woustraat to the south there’s the fabulous market on Albert Cuypstraat, lots of rough pubs and the inevitable “coffeehouses”—dope for sale—and a small, always-crowded tapas bar called Siempre (Sweelinckstraat 23). Which brings me to Madrid (ideal for walking round). Madrid in fact has no tapas bars: the concept is an Anglo-German-Dutch invention brought back from holidays on the costas. In a Madrid bar, you order a drink which might come with a little free bite to eat; if you’re with someone and want something bigger, share a ración. Then do it again elsewhere, as many times as you like.
The most old-fashioned watering-hole in the city centre, where only olives, nuts and dried tuna are on offer, is La Venencia (Calle de Echegaray 7). The point of La Venencia, meaning something like “testing rod,” is its sherry. After a long day at Madrid’s finest galleries—the Prado, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia or the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum—this dark, woody hideaway is ideal for enjoying the Andalusian nectar direct from the barrel.
Art, of course, is also one of Madrid’s attractions. Alongside the aforementioned standard collections the Sorolla Museum (Paseo del General Martínez Campos 37), named after turn-of-the-century Valencian painter Joaquín Sorolla, contains brilliant canvases of rustic and family Spanish life which have generally been overshadowed by Dalí, Miró and friends. This is a restful townhouse retreat. Madrid is exuberant and edgy, but it can also be very tiring.
