It's the Manneken Pis of Berlin. Everyone wants to see it, but who sees it is not enthusiastic about it.

I was cautioned that it would be disappointing. I wasn't quite prepared for how underwhelmed I'd be; it's almost cartoonish.

The Allied Museum which contains a real checkpoint booth as well as other artifacts was much more interesting. Agree that the checkpoint charlie is very cheesy and that's without the "photographers" who wanted money to take pictures but are no linger permitted.

Have a trip coming up in February. Would those places be okay in the dead of winter or just spend more time in Berlin?

Hi
Potsdam ( including Scholss sanssouci with its gardens and orangerie etc would be worth a visit ( might have snow on the ground and will likely be cold)

Regards


TBS

Winter is not the perfect time, but not a dead time. There is still enough to explore.

Not an excursion from Berlin, but within Berlin, the Sammlung Boros is a really interesting gallery built in an old bunker/bomb shelter. Because of the weirdness of the structure, you can only go through with a guided tour, but the tours are only about a dozen people. They have frequent english and german language tours that you have to book in advance.

I’ve been to Berlin at least a dozen times in the last 3 years or so and never wanted to visit Checkpoint Charlie!

But an almost everyone I’ve met who has been has been thoroughly disappointed by it!

But thanks to worldiswide for the tip about the Allied Museum and to chrisl137 for a reminder about the Boros gallery. Both have gone on my list for future visits

You are welcome. The whole area around the allied museum is interesting. The American embassy was formerly located there as well. Easy to get to on public transportation.

I think the current Checkpoint Charlie is only really interesting (and still not worth more than a few minutes) if you went through it back when there was an actual border there, at least if you were headed east. I went through a couple times in the 80s and it was quite the contrast from West Berlin to East. IIRC, there was an "electronics" store just past Charlie that had long picture windows filled with televisions and typewriters. There was a single model of each, but there were a ton in the window. FWIW, the high end PCs at the time were 80286 based. Now I think there's a KFC and a McD's along there, and I found most of the places I went in former East Berlin were more interesting than those in the west, and the Kudamm seemed like a relic of the cold war.

A According to my guide, that's because Berlin was in the Russian zone and when Soviets divided the city into sectors, between themselves and the Allies, they kept the best and most historical and culturally significant parts of the city for themselves.

We went to Berlin long ago (2006) with a coworker that lived in West Berlin. It was interesting to hear his stories about going into East Berlin.
While the Checkpoint Charlie itself is cheesy I found the stories of people trying to escape in the museum there interesting. Heartbreaking at times.
Will definitely check out the Allied Museum. Thanks!

Is that the museum in Olympic Stadium Park?

https://www.west-alliierte-in-berlin.de

If so, it was very interesting. If not, this is another museum.

I also enjoyed touring Tempelhof. The massive terminal is still there. In good weather, you can walk the runways. There is a visitor center and a small museum in the terminal and a statue commemorating the Berlin Airlift in front.

I have visited the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park a few times. The architecture is so unique. I am not sure how it would be in the winter, but it was beautiful in the spring.

That's certainly true from a historical perspective, but there's a lot of modern cultural stuff that's more fun in the former east than the former west, too. I didn't follow details, but I suspect it was much cheaper to do things that had relatively high financial risk (like open a club, restaurant, or theater) in the former east for quite a while after the wall came down.

It is. And yet enough people want the GDR back. It was great back then. The doofuses (worldwide) are booming, even if we've always had them.