Dispatch from Berlin
Five days of unscripted eating, shopping, and history lessons in a city I can’t believe I’d never made it to before
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I recently got back from a marathon six weeks in Europe, which included a lot of zigzagging around–Milan, Florence, Rome, Lucca, Genoa, Scotland, Rome, Geneva, Vienna, Elmau (near Munich), Dresden, Prague, and lastly, Berlin. Somehow, neither my husband Matt nor I (or our adult daughter, Clara) had ever made it to the German capital. And now we’re kicking ourselves over it. How did we not manage to come in the ‘80s, or the ‘90s, or or or…? We did a pretty epic Berlin Black Book a year and a half ago, and while it armed me with great intel, I really had no idea how much I would like it until I got here. No matter how much you read about the culture and vibe of a place, it's hard to know if it’s a match until you go. I also enjoyed putting our Black Book to the test—luckily, on our train ride there from Prague, Clara had mapped out all of the suggestions! In addition, she tapped our friend Sungjin Anh, the creative director of Mouki Mou, who has great taste. And I got a great list via our friend Dewey Nicks, who followed his friend Brad Dunning’s recommendations when he was there, and passed it along with his notes. (We’ve added those lists into our Black Book now!) We spent five solid days and six nights there, basing ourselves at the independently owned Chateau Royal, in the Mitte district. (When I was doing my research, I was surprised to find how few luxury hotel groups have a presence here, maybe because the “Peaceful Revolution” was only 36 years ago.) The hotel is very cool, very central, and is near a lot of the check-it-off-the-list landmarks.
For those of you who are new here, we have a website where we publish extensive city guides—our Black Books—which are incredible resources, containing much more than you could possibly do even in several weeks in a place. Here on Substack, you’ll get my really personal dispatch—what we as a family actually did during this week. In contrast to many of the trips I go on, this was a personal one—it was Clara’s spring break from the University of Edinburgh, and I promised that I wouldn’t spend time in work mode or meeting up with other people, and wouldn’t overprogram. Nor did I reach out to friends who live there, make any reservations, or map anything out. Matt and Clara don’t love to be carted from museum to museum, they like to have a say in what the day’s events are, and don’t really like to plan ahead. So this was an exercise in going with the flow.
Arrival and Day 1
