A Berlin weekend in summer

I love Berlin and I have been there many times, but almost always in winter. Oh, how  I have battled freezing temperatures while visiting BERLINALE for my job - which usually happens in February. But this time I got to enjoy the German capitol in bright sunshine, together with my son and grandson.

​We stayed in the "Arnim Kiez" neighbourhood, which is actually a part of the hip Prenzlauer Berg, but a bit more authentic and less gentrified, across from the big separator of Schönholzer Allee (with the elevated tram riding above!). I had booked a cool AirBnB apartment which had ample room for the three of us:

​There was no need to do any sightseeing downtown as we'd all been to the city before, but I loved exploring the neighbourhood, the plentiful streetart, the cafés, and this time around the playgrounds, too, as we had a 6-year-old with us. 

​Prenzlauer Berg disappointed me a bit this year. It has become a trendy place for young families to live, yes, and there were surprisingly many restaurants with signs announcing that "children are welcome"!
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But a lot of the interesting small shops seem to have moved North a bit into Helmholtz Kiez. There I roamed about and near Helmholtz Square I was impressed by a designy and very cool place for  co-working cum childcare, "Le Box".

We ate a lot of good food, mostly Vietnamese which is very reasonably priced and available at seemingly every corner.

We enjoyed "our" cool café right across the street where we took all breakfasts (luckily there was a "normal" bakery just a few steps down the street for my grandson who doesn't go for banana bread - the very best I ever had!!! - or smoothies or healthy muesli bowls).

​The real reason for this Berlin trip was a special one: a dear friend's son celebrated his 14th birthday (my son is his godfather, so we had to be there). And HOW we celebrated: with a cruize on the river Spree! A "loungecruizer" took us up and down the river for a good three hours on Saturday afternoon, letting us see both some of the city sights and the green waterways to the South of Berlin:

​For more images you can always visit my insta feed!!!