Where to stay in Berlin
1 h route5 stopsBest: All yearUpdated July 2026
Berlin’s districts don’t orbit a centre, because the city was split and each half developed its own: the west around the Kurfürstendamm, the east around Alexanderplatz. Add that Berlin is enormous, nine times the area of Paris, and choosing an area shapes the whole trip.
The good news is that public transport is excellent and runs all night at weekends, so no central district is really far. The decision is about atmosphere: monuments, nightlife or a quiet neighbourhood.
The route, stop by stop
5 STOPS- 01
Mitte
Almost everything you come to see is here: the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, Unter den Linden, Museum Island and Alexanderplatz. Everything is walkable and transport is everywhere. In exchange it’s the priciest and the most touristy part, with less neighbourhood life: the ministry-and-big-hotel zone empties out at night. For a short first visit, it works.
- 02
Kreuzberg and Neukölln
Kreuzberg was hemmed in by the wall on three sides, isolated and cheap, and so filled with Turkish immigrants, squatters and artists. It’s still the district with the most character in the city: the Turkish canal market, the bars, Görlitzer park and the partying.
Neukölln, to the south, is where that energy has been shifting over the last fifteen years, with more new places and slightly better prices. Both are excellent for going out and eating, and noisy to sleep in if you land on the wrong street.
Very well connected by U-Bahn.
- 03
Prenzlauer Berg
Its nineteenth-century buildings survived the bombing, a rare thing in Berlin, and after the wall came down the district filled with squatters and bars. Today it’s the textbook example of gentrification: tree-lined streets, brunch cafés, children’s shops and one of Germany’s highest birth rates.
It lost its edge but it’s thoroughly pleasant to sleep in: quiet, handsome, with the Kollwitzplatz market and ten minutes from Mitte by tram.
The sensible option for families or anyone who wants to sleep at night.
- 04
Friedrichshain
East of the river, with the East Side Gallery on its bank and Karl-Marx-Allee running through it: a monumental fifties avenue of Stalinist-style buildings clad in tile, built as a shop window for socialism. Worth a walk even if you don’t sleep there.
It’s also the district of the big clubs and of parties that run until Monday. Young, lively and reasonably priced.
If you want silence, it isn’t your place.
- 05
Charlottenburg and the west
While the wall stood, this was the centre of West Berlin: the Kurfürstendamm with its shops, the zoo, the KaDeWe department store and the Kaiser Wilhelm church, deliberately left with its broken tower as a reminder of the 1943 bombing.
Today it’s the most bourgeois and quiet area, with a good supply of hotels and less party tourism. It’s fifteen or twenty minutes by metro from the historic centre.
A good choice if you value rest and space over being in the thick of it.
Frequently asked
What’s the best area to stay in Berlin?
Mitte for a short trip with the monuments on foot, Prenzlauer Berg for a handsome, quiet, well-connected district, Kreuzberg or Neukölln if you came for the nightlife and the food, and Charlottenburg for the quiet, bourgeois west.
Is Berlin big?
Very: it covers about nine times the area of Paris, with forests and lakes inside the city limits. That’s why choosing a district matters more here than in other capitals, though public transport is excellent and runs right through the night at weekends.