Berlin Neighbourhood by Neighbourhood: Beyond the Brandenburg Gate

See the Brandenburg Gate, walk the Holocaust Memorial, look up at the Fernsehturm — and then leave Mitte. Berlin's centre holds its history, but its life happens in the Kieze, the fiercely local neighbourhoods that Berliners name-check the way other cities name football teams. Each was shaped differently by war, Wall and reunification, and crossing from one to the next can feel like changing cities.

• Getting around: the U-Bahn, S-Bahn and tram network reaches everything below; a day ticket covers zones A and B
• Rhythm: Berlin runs late — brunch past noon, dinner at nine, clubs from midnight
• Cash: more places take cards than a decade ago, but many bars and markets remain cash-only
• Best months: May–September, when the city lives outdoors

Kreuzberg — canals, markets, mythology

West Berlin's old counterculture quarter still earns its reputation, if you know where to stand. The towpaths of the Landwehr Canal fill with musicians and picnics all summer; the Turkish market on Maybachufer (Tuesdays and Fridays) sells everything from gozleme to bolts of fabric. In a restored brick market hall on Eisenbahnstrasse, Markthalle Neun revived the neighbourhood's food culture — its Street Food Thursday evenings are an institution. Around Bergmannstrasse, the gentler western half of the district does bookshops and burgers under plane trees.

Neukoelln — the reinvention

Across the canal, Neukoelln flipped in fifteen years from no-go reputation to the city's most interesting bar mile. Weserstrasse and the streets off it hide candle-lit wine bars and Syrian bakeries in equal measure. The great set piece is Klunkerkranich, a garden-shack rooftop bar on top of the Neukoelln Arcaden shopping centre car park — sunset over the whole city skyline, TV tower included. Sundays belong to the flea market on the Maybachufer's Neukoelln bank and to slow breakfasts that outlast the afternoon.

Tempelhofer Feld — the impossible park

Between Kreuzberg and Neukoelln lies the former Tempelhof Airport, closed in 2008 and handed to the public as-is: 300 hectares of runways where the city now kites, skates, gardens and barbecues. Berliners voted in a 2014 referendum to keep it undeveloped. Cycling down a runway with the old terminal on the horizon is the most Berlin experience available.

Prenzlauer Berg — the beautiful survivor

East Berlin's best-preserved nineteenth-century quarter came through the war comparatively lightly, and its restored tenements around Kollwitzplatz and Helmholtzplatz are now the city at its most photogenic. On Kastanienallee, Prater Garten — Berlin's oldest beer garden, pouring since the nineteenth century — does exactly what a beer garden should. On Sundays, Mauerpark hosts the city's most famous flea market and, in summer, open-air karaoke in the amphitheatre that draws crowds in the thousands.

Friedrichshain — the eastern edge

South of Frankfurter Allee's Stalinist parade architecture, Friedrichshain clusters around Boxhagener Platz: record shops, Sunday flea market, cheap and excellent food from a dozen diasporas. The RAW-Gelaende, a graffiti-saturated former railway yard, holds clubs, Sunday markets and a climbing tower — "Der Kegel", a cone-shaped wartime air-raid shelter built to protect railway workers, not a gun tower. The East Side Gallery — the longest surviving stretch of the Wall, painted by artists in 1990 — is technically a sight, but walk it early, from the Oberbaumbruecke end.

Charlottenburg — the old West

Unfashionable for two decades and better for it, the old West resurfaces around Savignyplatz: wood-panelled wine bars, art bookshops under the S-Bahn arches, and some of the city's best-value old-school restaurants. Come here when the east's relentless cool wears thin.

Tip: Pick one Kiez per day rather than criss-crossing the city — Berlin's distances are deceptive, and the point of these neighbourhoods is walking them slowly, not collecting them.