überlin

Part two of our Excellent Scandinavian Adventure! (Zoë’s busy cutting-and-pasting our heads onto Bill and Ted’s bodies as I write this.) After Stockholm (read our highlights here), Copenhagen was colder and even more expensive! Case in point: brunch for two at Café Europa, recommended by the chic @Lilies_Diary, came to €70. Despite this, the Danes were warm and welcoming, and we had loads of fun: here are the best bits of our three days in the CPH.

We stumbled across a couple of early highlights on our first walk through the historical waterfront Nyhavn district into town. First, we picked up the best brews of our trip in the Coffee Factory, and then we spotted an actor from Forbydelsen! (For the nerds: Nicolas Bro, who plays Thomas Buch. If he wasn’t deep in conversation, you’d now be looking at a picture of him, me, and my two thumbs.) We celebrated by hitting the shops, killing (geddit?) time in Wood Wood and the city’s countless independent boutiques – naturally, I bought some Clarks.

Shamefully, we only followed one tip on our friend Ed’s excellent Foursquare list, but we picked well. The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, rightly called “the most beautiful museum in the world”, is one of the best things we’ve ever seen. Situated an hour away on the north Zealand coast, the museum combines an excellent collection – of sculpture in particular – with panoramic views across the Øresund that had us vowing to one day live somewhere like that. Back in town, we went from the transcendent to the touristy, popping into the Ice Bar to warm up (its -5°C was a few degrees balmier than the street outside) and grabbing the best hotdog in town at the nearby Andersen Bakery. Muscular, sexy versions of those limp dogs you get in Ikea, these are like the Brigitte Nielsens of meaty treats. I’ve said too much…

Check out our Stockholm highlights, and stay tuned for more stunning photos of the Louisiana Museum.

We’ve been in Berlin nearly 12 months, which means that this here blog is almost a year old. Our little baby’s all grows up!

We’re throwing the little feller a birthday party on Saturday 19th November – a year to the day after we first landed in Berlin. We’re going to celebrate the best of the British-in-Berlin, by taking over an expat friend’s bar, drinking specially-priced gin and tonics and listening to Bowie, Iggy and anyone else who’s ever loved this city as much as we do. The fabulous Foodie in Berlin has even offered to make us a birthday cake!

So come on down and help us toast a year of living and blogging in Berlin. Prost!

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Saturday 19th November, 10pm – ?
The Black Lodge, Sanderstrasse 6, Neukölln, 12047 Berlin [link]

We recently asked our Facebook fans what they wanted to see more of on the blog and the top answer so far (go vote!) has been “cool things to see and do in Berlin”. Now we don’t get out much, and if we do, we don’t stray from our Kiez – but that’s OK, because the area around Graefestrasse in Kreuzberg has everything we need (except for great coffee).

I decided that a niftybobs way of introducing you to the neighbourhood would be a personalised Google Map marked up with our highlights. As well as a dangerous number of eateries (I’m writing this with a gut-full of ice cream), there are bars, Hard Wax records (which I’m claiming even though its located over the canal), an expert tattooists and – what the what? – a licorice shop??!!

So have a click around Graefekiez. Let us know if we’ve missed anything, and why not make a map of your area? We’d love to get an insider’s view on other parts of Berlin. Ciao!

View Graefekiez in a larger map