Berlin

🍺 Drinking in Public

Drinking in public in Berlin is not just permitted but actually encouraged. You will often see people walking on the streets or along the canals with a bottle of beer in their hands. Spätis (convenience stores) in Berlin are very catering to this with beers, wines and mixed drinks chilled in the fridge.

If you fancy mixing your own drink you can also find vodka and other hard liquor in smaller formats in the fridge. Just get whatever you fancy mixing it with and drink a bit so you have space to pour the liquor in.

Most bottles, especially beer and plastic ones along with cans will have a pfand (deposit) on them. You can always get your money back at one of the machines in any supermarket, but the done thing is to leave them on the ground next to an orange garbage bin so that people in need can collect them.

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💊 Medicines & Pharmacies

If you are looking for a pharmacy where you can talk to a pharmacist to get some over the counter medications the place you want to look for is an Apotheke. Most painkillers and other OTC medicines in the US or the UK are behind the counter here so you’ll need to ask someone to get them for you.

If you are looking for personal hygiene items from toothpaste to tampons you can find them at DM or Rossmann. These are the equivalent of CVS in the US or Boots in the UK. They generally close at 9pm.

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⏰ Opening Times

Shops

Big shops and chains mainly open until 8pm and smaller and independent shops may close at 7pm. This does not include grocery stores and pharmacies, which generally open until 9pm and even 11pm. Spätis, aka convenience stores, generally open until much later and sometimes even 24 hours.

Beware that almost all shops close on Sundays bar from a few Sundays a year that they call "Shopping Sundays". To be honest I haven’t been bothered, but if you are super organised / lucky you may come across a shopping Sunday. If you are desperate for a grocery store on a Sunday you can find a few that are open at the major train stations. Check out Sunday Shopping in Berlin on the official website.

If you just need a drink or a snack, then again Spätis are your best bet. Most Spätis on the main stretches are open on Sundays but even the ones that don't look open you should always pass by and see if they are really closed. You can normally tell by whether there are people hanging out at the door.

‍Restaurants

Bigger and chain restaurants normally open 7 days a week. Independent and neighbourhood restaurants generally take one day off a week. This could be Sundays or Mondays or even Tuesdays. Best to check before going and even better book in for smaller restaurants.

Most restaurants don’t have an off time between lunch and dinner. But if they only open for dinners, normally they’ll open around 6:30pm and the kitchen closes around 10:30pm.

If you are hungry at night for a snack look out for one of the city’s many kebab places. They generally open until much later or even 24 hours so you won’t be hungry after you re-emerge from the bars, clubs and dungeons.

‍Bars

Bars in the city centre generally open reasonably early, sometimes even from midday. If you find yourself out of the city centre though in somewhere like Neukölln or Kreuzberg then bars might not open until 7pm even on the weekends but you can always count on them opening until late. If you fancy a little bit of day drinking then a beer garden is going to be your best bet.

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🚍 Public Transport

BVG is the name of the public transport service here in Berlin and I highly recommend downloading the BVG Tickets App on your phone. The tickets are good for all forms of public transport in Berlin including U Bahn, S Bahn, trams and buses. It saves you time from getting tickets at the station every time.

If you plan on walking to most of the places you are visiting and only taking public transport a few times then get the 4 single-trip tickets. It’s cheaper than getting individual ones and you can do 2 round trips with this. Just remember to validate in the app for each journey.

A single trip ticket in Berlin allows you to do a trip in the same direction within 2 hours. So you can have multiple stopovers and change the modes of transport as long as it’s within two hours from the time you validate your ticket. You can't, however, do a return trip on one ticket. The ticket controllers are known to be aggressive/chase-y, they will hunt you down if you run your ticket.

If you think you’d be doing more than 2 round trips in a day then it makes more sense to get the 24 hour ticket for unlimited travels within a day.

Another thing to be aware of is the travel zones in Berlin. Most of your trips will fall within the AB zone so you shouldn’t worry too much about it. An exception is trips to the Airport, in that case you should get a ticket for ABC zones.

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🤑 Tipping

Tipping is generally appreciated and the norm is around 10% at sit-down restaurants.

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