Your Best Guide to Museum Hopping in Berlin

The capital of Germany, Berlin, is chock full of museums, monuments, and galleries. Whether you are in town for the weekend or a couple of weeks, you will need an itinerary to make sure you get to see the ones you want because there are so many. 

For history, try the DDR Museum, the Stasi Museum, or the Allied Museum. And the Academy of Arts or Altes Museum are great places to see some art. There are plenty to choose from with over 50 museums, but drop off your shopping parcels and bags at a luggage storage facility first because you cannot bring them with you.

Art

• Hamburger Bahnhof Gallery

Hamburger Bahnhof Gallery is housed in an old train station and has art dating back to the 1960s. The Friedrich Christian Flick Collection is the most popular and contains over 2,500 pieces by 150 artists. Object art, photos, and film are also featured in the gallery. 

• Sammlung Boros

In what used to be a war bunker, the Sammlung Boros is said to be one of the best and most unique museum experiences in the city. Home to the private collection of Karen and Christian Boros, their contemporary artworks are popular, and the museum is often crowded. 

• König Gallery

Started in 2002 by Johann König, the König Gallery has some of the hottest art exhibits, according to the art crowd. Featuring hundreds of pieces from all over the world, you can see John Seal, Peter Dreher, and Tue Greenfort, among many others. Be sure to stop at the gift shop for some unique souvenirs.

History

• Deutsches Historical Museum

The permanent exhibition in this history museum takes you back over 1,500 years. With two floors full of items, learn about the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the 30-Year War, and the First World War of 1918. There are over 7,000 pieces to see, and you can even learn about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

• Anne Frank Museum

The Anne Frank Museum features a history of the life and death of one of the most important children of the Holocaust. With tales from her personal life, the world she had to live in, and how she dealt with such atrocities, the museum is an eye-opening place for anyone to learn about the plague of socialism.

• Märkisches Museum

This museum was founded in 1874 with just a few pieces from local citizens but is now a huge collection in a giant building along the River Spree in Köllnischer Park. The highlights include a toy collection from the Imperial period, iron armor and weapons, and art from the Berlin Secession.

Nature

• Museum of Natural History

The Museum of Natural History has a plethora of really cool exhibits, from parasites to dinosaurs. Learn about the inner structures of the earth, the solar system and the cosmos, and amazing minerals, and see some awesome insect models. They even have a hands-on section for science experiments.

• Waldschweiz Forest Museum

An open-air museum with over 7,400 acres to explore is going to take some time, so make sure you see this one on a day you have nothing else planned. Full of lakes and ponds as well as the Havel River, you can see thousands of trees and plants, as well as wildlife that lives there.

• Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum

This popular garden has over 22,000 different plant species with over three million plants. The 106-acre garden was built between 1897 and 1910 and is part of the Free University of Berlin. You can see all sorts of plants, including carnivorous plants, orchids, and lilies.

Science and Technology

• German Museum of Technology

The German Museum of Technology has a wide variety of items to see, but the main theme seems to be transportation. See the Rumpler Tropfenwagen, a saloon car that belonged to Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the Douglas C-47B Skytrain Raisin Bomber. You'll also see an exhibit of computers, such as the Z1 Zuse computer. Don't miss the tour of the Science Center Spectrum. 

• Museum of Communication 

The Museum of Communication shows you how we went from smoke signals to Morse code to artificial intelligence over the years. Learn about the early days of the postal service and see a collection of postal artifacts from the 1870s, including the famous Cosmos stamp.

• Computerspiele Museum

The museum of computer games is what it should be called, because that is what it is. See the evolution of computer games from the 1950 Nimrod, which is the first computer game ever, to the future of where gaming is headed. The digital future is a favorite among the other 300 exhibits.

Miscellaneous

• Madame Tussauds Berlin 

Madame Tussauds is a wax museum that is perfect for getting some amazing selfies. You can pose with Marilyn Monroe, Heidi Klum, or even Darth Vader. See Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and William Shakespeare too. You can even get a shot with Donald Trump or Barack Obama.

• Design Panoptikum

Design Panoptikum shows you a whole new world of what you can do with old tools sitting around in your garage. See a group of human-machine hybrids made from metal and plastic body parts. And marvel at a weird collection of lamps that form a unique and even creepy world of art.

• Museum Island

Museum Island is not just one museum but five, so you can spend an entire day there. It includes the Altes Museum, Neues Museum, National Gallery, Bode Museum, and the Pergamon Museum. Collections in the Altes Museum include Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art.

The Neues Museum boasts items from the Egyptian Museum and the Museum of Prehistory, among others. The National Gallery has contemporary German and French art. The Bode Museum includes Byzantine art and numismatic collections. And the Pergamon has artifacts from Islamic art, classical antiquities, and more.

Have you worked up an appetite after all of the touring? Food is an important part of German culture, and you should not miss out on tasting some of the local cuisine while you are in Berlin. Currywurst is the most common, with curry and chili on a hotdog. And you cannot forget about the schnitzel and beer. For dessert, try some German donuts or pancakes called pfannkuchen.