BERLIN Any tips long before our trip?
 

Hi, and thank you!! We are not going to Berlin until September but I bet that there are lots of reservations or things we could do NOW to make our vacation better. (Sometimes a particular day of the week has free admission; sometimes a great restaurant needs a 2 month reservation; maybe there is a tour that fills up very fast and we should be on the list early...etc. etc.) Any tips for 2 active seniors would be extremely appreciated! Berlin, Prague, Krakow

Thanks again for your kindness!

Around here there used to be this thing about "You HAVE to stay in Mitte."

Well, no, you don't. However, I do think it is important to understand the means of efficient transport in that city.

As to those "things" you mention: it would be helpful to know exactly what SORT of things you might be interested in.

I could, for example, tell you that you should have bought seats for a performance at the Schiller long ago but if you aren't the least bit interested in opera...

I had expected debit cards and credit cards to be accepted as payment at fast-food restaurants and for purchasing metro tickets in Berlin, but this was not the case when I visited in 2013; cash seemed to be king!

A major highlight of my trip to Berlin was going to the sprawling Russian military memorial on the outskirts of town. I was glad my guidebook made special mention of it.

A little old but some things never change:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...m#last-comment

I enjoy going on walking tours, both themed and general overview tours. They are cheap (12-14 euro) and they can really make your visit special. I avoid the "free" ones as the information you get can often be incorrect and I don't like their business model. So far, have had great luck with Insider Tours after going on 5 of their tours.

Tons of museums in Berlin, so pick the ones that match your interests.

Track 17 is a less visited site, but I found it to be very meaningful.

For side trips, consider going to the Wannsee Villa, Potsdam, Sachsenhausen or Ravensbruck Concentration Camps.

The official city tourist site is very useful
http://www.visitberlin.de/en
Reserve in advance for the tour of the parliament Bundestag building. This is a security check ahead of the day of tour, and the procedure is fairly rigid as detailed in the link below. The building is a bold combination of old and new architecture and the famous dome on top offers a fabulous view across the city horizons.
https://visite.bundestag.de/BAPWeb/p...st.jsf?lang=en
Berlin is widely spread out so you will benefit from studying the public transit systems in advance. That's systems plural: U-Bahn and S-Bahn, awkwardly separate operations with a not-always-helpful amount of co-ordination. (In other words, I got lost a couple of times.)
Checkpoint Charlie is high on the list of limp, contrived tourist attractions.

We had a lot of fun doing this.

http://www.trabi-safari.de/index.php?language=en