A short Berlin trip with kids goes further with a plan. These are the places we'd take visiting family first, the ones that hold a kid's attention and not only an adult's. The city's split history is everywhere, and kids get it fastest standing where the Wall stood. Here's what we checked, from a towering dinosaur skeleton to the old airport runways of Tempelhofer Feld.
The museum is built around its dinosaur hall, where kids crane up at Giraffatitan, the largest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world. Tristan Otto, an exceptionally well-preserved T. rex, and the Berlin Archaeopteryx, an early bird fossil, are on show too.
Other galleries cover minerals, the solar system, evolution and taxidermy animals, plus the Wet Collection: about a million specimens in jars of alcohol.
Germany's oldest zoo, opened in 1844, keeps around 20,000 animals and more species than any other zoo in the world. Kids can watch Germany's only giant pandas, plus elephants and pygmy hippos, and pet goats at the petting zoo.
Many animals live in indoor houses, so it works on a cold day too. The aquarium by the Elefantentor gate needs a combined ticket.
Tempelhofer Feld is the former Tempelhof airport, opened as a park in 2010. Over 300 hectares of meadow surround the old runways, where kids bike, skate and fly kites on wide, flat asphalt with no cars.
By the southeast entrance, the Tempelschlucht nature play area has a water pump feeding a little stream, sand and clay for mud play, and big boulders to climb.
The Fernsehturm is the 368-meter TV tower opposite Alexanderplatz station, and its observation deck at 203 meters is the highest viewpoint in the city. Kids can pick out the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the Spree from the 360-degree windows, then try Berlin's Odyssee, a virtual reality trip through nine centuries of city history. The Sphere restaurant up top revolves while you eat.
The memorial runs 1.4 km along Bernauer Straße, where the border split the street in two. Rusty steel rods trace the line of the Wall, and markers show escape tunnels and spots where people died trying to cross.
From the viewing tower at the Documentation Center, kids look down into the last preserved stretch of the death strip, watchtower included. Best with school-age kids who know some of the history.
A large technology museum with a locomotive shed full of historic trains, a shipping hall where kids hoist sails and steer a boat into harbor, and an aviation wing with the "Candy Bomber" plane up on the roof terrace.
The Science Center Spectrum, on the same ticket, has more than 150 hands-on experiments. Outside, the museum park has a playground and picnic areas.
The glass dome on the roof of the Reichstag Building, home of the German parliament, has a spiral ramp that winds up around a mirrored cone to an open top. Kids can look down through the glass into the plenary chamber, then walk the roof terrace for views over the government district and city landmarks.
Audioguides on the terrace come in twelve languages, with a children's version in German.
The city's only surviving historic gate, built 1788 to 1791 and modeled on the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens. Twelve Doric columns hold up the Quadriga, a chariot statue Napoleon took to Paris in 1806 and Berlin got back in 1814.
Kids can walk through the columns, spot the four horses on top, and hear how the gate stood in a closed zone of the Berlin Wall until 1989.
Futurium is a museum about how people might live in the future, on the Spree between the main station and the Reichstag. The exhibition is split into three thinking spaces, human, nature and technology, full of interactive stations.
In the Futurium Lab, kids can craft, solder and program at hands-on workshops, and the rooftop Skywalk opens when the weather allows.
The DDR Museum shows daily life in East Germany through original objects visitors are allowed to handle. Kids sit behind the wheel of a Trabi driving simulator and walk through a furnished prefab apartment whose children's room is stocked with East German toys to play with.
Other rooms cover the Wall, the Stasi and a kindergarten corner. The Stasi section suits older kids more than toddlers.
Tierpark Berlin spreads across 160 hectares of parkland around the 18th-century Friedrichsfelde manor house, making it Europe's largest animal park. Kids can watch tigers in the renovated Alfred Brehm House, spot red pandas and snow leopards on a cloud-forest trail, and see giraffes and zebras on an African savanna.
Between animals there's a petting zoo with goats and ponies, a seaside-themed water play area, and the Fabelwald woodland playground.
The East Side Gallery is the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall, running 1.3 km along Mühlenstraße between Ostbahnhof and the Oberbaumbrücke. After the Wall fell, 118 artists from 21 countries painted it with murals.
Kids can hunt for famous ones, like the Brezhnev and Honecker kiss and a Trabant car bursting through the Wall, then cut across to the green strip along the Spree.
A short Berlin trip with kids goes further with a plan. These are the places we'd take visiting family first, the ones that hold a kid's attention and not only an adult's. The city's split history is everywhere, and kids get it fastest standing where the Wall stood. Here's what we checked, from a towering dinosaur skeleton to the old airport runways of Tempelhofer Feld.
The museum is built around its dinosaur hall, where kids crane up at Giraffatitan, the largest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world. Tristan Otto, an exceptionally well-preserved T. rex, and the Berlin Archaeopteryx, an early bird fossil, are on show too.
Other galleries cover minerals, the solar system, evolution and taxidermy animals, plus the Wet Collection: about a million specimens in jars of alcohol.
Germany's oldest zoo, opened in 1844, keeps around 20,000 animals and more species than any other zoo in the world. Kids can watch Germany's only giant pandas, plus elephants and pygmy hippos, and pet goats at the petting zoo.
Many animals live in indoor houses, so it works on a cold day too. The aquarium by the Elefantentor gate needs a combined ticket.
Tempelhofer Feld is the former Tempelhof airport, opened as a park in 2010. Over 300 hectares of meadow surround the old runways, where kids bike, skate and fly kites on wide, flat asphalt with no cars.
By the southeast entrance, the Tempelschlucht nature play area has a water pump feeding a little stream, sand and clay for mud play, and big boulders to climb.
The Fernsehturm is the 368-meter TV tower opposite Alexanderplatz station, and its observation deck at 203 meters is the highest viewpoint in the city. Kids can pick out the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the Spree from the 360-degree windows, then try Berlin's Odyssee, a virtual reality trip through nine centuries of city history. The Sphere restaurant up top revolves while you eat.
The memorial runs 1.4 km along Bernauer Straße, where the border split the street in two. Rusty steel rods trace the line of the Wall, and markers show escape tunnels and spots where people died trying to cross.
From the viewing tower at the Documentation Center, kids look down into the last preserved stretch of the death strip, watchtower included. Best with school-age kids who know some of the history.
A large technology museum with a locomotive shed full of historic trains, a shipping hall where kids hoist sails and steer a boat into harbor, and an aviation wing with the "Candy Bomber" plane up on the roof terrace.
The Science Center Spectrum, on the same ticket, has more than 150 hands-on experiments. Outside, the museum park has a playground and picnic areas.
The glass dome on the roof of the Reichstag Building, home of the German parliament, has a spiral ramp that winds up around a mirrored cone to an open top. Kids can look down through the glass into the plenary chamber, then walk the roof terrace for views over the government district and city landmarks.
Audioguides on the terrace come in twelve languages, with a children's version in German.
The city's only surviving historic gate, built 1788 to 1791 and modeled on the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens. Twelve Doric columns hold up the Quadriga, a chariot statue Napoleon took to Paris in 1806 and Berlin got back in 1814.
Kids can walk through the columns, spot the four horses on top, and hear how the gate stood in a closed zone of the Berlin Wall until 1989.
Futurium is a museum about how people might live in the future, on the Spree between the main station and the Reichstag. The exhibition is split into three thinking spaces, human, nature and technology, full of interactive stations.
In the Futurium Lab, kids can craft, solder and program at hands-on workshops, and the rooftop Skywalk opens when the weather allows.
The DDR Museum shows daily life in East Germany through original objects visitors are allowed to handle. Kids sit behind the wheel of a Trabi driving simulator and walk through a furnished prefab apartment whose children's room is stocked with East German toys to play with.
Other rooms cover the Wall, the Stasi and a kindergarten corner. The Stasi section suits older kids more than toddlers.
Tierpark Berlin spreads across 160 hectares of parkland around the 18th-century Friedrichsfelde manor house, making it Europe's largest animal park. Kids can watch tigers in the renovated Alfred Brehm House, spot red pandas and snow leopards on a cloud-forest trail, and see giraffes and zebras on an African savanna.
Between animals there's a petting zoo with goats and ponies, a seaside-themed water play area, and the Fabelwald woodland playground.
The East Side Gallery is the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall, running 1.3 km along Mühlenstraße between Ostbahnhof and the Oberbaumbrücke. After the Wall fell, 118 artists from 21 countries painted it with murals.
Kids can hunt for famous ones, like the Brezhnev and Honecker kiss and a Trabant car bursting through the Wall, then cut across to the green strip along the Spree.
