THE STIRRER'S BERLIN BLOG

14-11-2006

Never mind New York, if you wanta city that never sleeps there's one at least five hours closer to home - the German capital Berlin. Stirrer editor Adrian Goldberg offers a few travel tips after sharinghis mate Damien'sstag weekend there.

The first thing to know about Berlin is that's never too late to arrive. The four of us shuffled onto the street at 11pm after catching an evening flight from Luton, but it turns out that we were among theearly-birds.

One bar Silberfisch in thebusy Oranienburger Strasse boasts that it's open to 8 a.m. andas we headed back to our hotel at a wimpish 4a.m. many others in thatstrip were alsogoing strong.

When the government introduced 24 hour drinking, Berlin is the kind of place they must have had in mind; although the bars are busy and buzzy, there's no hint of brawling Broad Street menace with drinkers takingtime to sup up at their leisure.

The city's bar culture is different in other ways to Britain's as well. For one thing, virtually every barseems to be owned by the person standing behind it.

Unlike in Britain where huge pubcos tell the landlord how his pub should look and what beer it should sell -leading to a series of bland, boozy barns - in Berlin there's a real effort to make everywhere look and feel individual.

One hippy throwback joint we visited had a Che Guevara T-shirt behind the bar and Bob Dylan blaring from the speakers; the next was a clubber's paradise, dark and womb-like with pumping ambient sounds.

There's also a great live music scene in the city. On our first night we stumbled into a bar and watched a great performance by a Berlin Brazilian band. Don't know what they were called and will probably never see them again, but they were awesome.

The following night we caught Tracy Gang Pussy - a French punk band - at the Wild At Heart club and it was another rip up the carpet night.

The combined admission of our two gigs was just 10 Euros - less than £7 - and not for the first time I was struck by the relatively cheap cost of entertainment abroad.

A trip to watch local Bundesliga club Hertha Berlin was even more of an eye-opener. The fans here still wear multiple scarves and have patches sewn into the back of their denim jacket,but the 70's vibe also extends to the ticket prices.

To stand behind the goal on the noisy Ostkurve costs just 12 Euros(around £8) which wouldn't get you into a Fourth Division game in England, never mind seeing a team competing for its national championship. The footy wasn't bad either - we witnessed a lively 3-3 draw.

If your interests extend beyond beer, football and punk rock (apparently there are a few folk like that still around), Sir Norman Foster's amazing tower and walkway at the rebuilt Reichstagis a must-see, as is Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous control point of the Berlin Wall.

There's no guarantee that you'll also run into the pot-bellied pig we saw being taken for a walk by its owner on Sunday morning while looking for a non-existent footy ground (don't ask); or that you'll be singing along to Sham 69 while drinking champagne at 3.30am in the wonderfully shabby Kreuzberg district.