Berlin at Christmas time

Where to Stay?

We love the Schöneberg neighborhood (the classic neighborhood of the gay community, was and still is), the restaurants, and the proximity to kudam' Street. We stayed at the Axel Hotel which is designed for the gay community (but not only). For the convenience we took a Junior Suite room, but one can get by with the regular rooms as well. In general, this is not the best hotel available in the area in terms of price, service, or any other metric. On the top floor, there is a (not big) complex of jacuzzis with two saunas and a small gym, it's nice to go up from time to time, have a short conversation, and get to know people. We ended up going up only twice during our stay. The service and maintenance of the hotel, unfortunately, require considerable improvement, which is a shame, let's hope it gets better and that we can keep coming to this hotel.

Where to eat?

Opposite the hotel there is a nice couple's café that opens at relatively early hours (except for Sunday which opens a little after 08:00), if you need a good morning coffee like we do, then this is a perfect solution.

At lunchtime and in the evening, there are several nice places in the Schöneberg neighborhood, one of which is right next to the hotel (Restaurant "Gino" Berlin) Italian food with a pleasant atmosphere. Another Italian option, in the heart of the neighborhood, is "Winterfeld" and of course "April", which we love very much. If you are ready for something a little different, we recommend a Vietnamese restaurant not far from the U Nollendorfplatz station called "Saigon Com Nieu"- try the Vietnamese crepe, just excellent.

What to do in the evening?

Unfortunately, in recent years, more and more places for gay entertainment have been closed. There are some bars for drinks only but not beyond that. The two places that remain prominent in the landscape are the sauna, which is surprisingly relatively busy at almost all hours of the day and on all day's - "boiler Sauna Berlin", is a large sauna with a decent restaurant, an outdoor courtyard, and many other facilities, and this time they even opened another area – another indoor bar with a foam area. The second place is the "Lab. Oratory", known for its Thursday night parties and sometimes also Sunday afternoons (check in advance, we specifically reserved Sunday as well and found out at the end that Sunday's party was canceled, probably because of the the Snaxx party held earlier). Yes, twice a year the two sides of the building (the LAB and the Berghain) are connected to the party of the whole party. This happens in April and December. The main problem is the long queue up to the entrance. We tried one of the years to stand in line and two hours later we gave up. This year we didn't try at all because we thought it would be impossible to withstand the December cold for over two hours. Some say they arrived late in the middle of the night and managed to get in, Others say they were no longer allowed in because of Quantity limit restrictions. As a principle, the party continues until noon of the next day. If you want to just have a beer in a pleasant atmosphere, there is a nice Bar opposite hotel Axel with a good atmosphere – "Prinzknecht (MEN ́S BAR)".

Christmas Markets

As a principle, Berlin knew a large amount of its Christmas markets. If you stay in Axel Hotel or the Schöneberg neighborhood, you can simply walk to the Christmas market in the Jodam'. We also went to the most famous – the Gendarmenmarkt market, which this year, due to renovations, was moved to Bebelplat Square.