Kurfürstendamm and City West Guide

Kurfürstendamm, usually shortened to Ku'damm, is the long boulevard that served as the shop window of West Berlin during the Cold War. It starts at Breitscheidplatz and runs south-west for about three and a half kilometres, past department stores, hotels, theatres and cafés. City West, the area around it, centres on Zoologischer Garten station and shows a different Berlin from Mitte: broader streets, a post-war look and much more traffic. It is the most useful stop on a day with Charlottenburg Palace.

The sights around Breitscheidplatz

The ruined tower of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is the landmark. Bombs in 1943 left the neo-Romanesque spire broken, and the city kept it as a war memorial, with a modern church of blue glass beside it, designed by Egon Eiermann. Step inside the new hall for the colour. Next door stands the Europa-Center, and just to the west is the Zoo and Aquarium, which suit families. Tauentzienstraße, running south-east from the square, leads to KaDeWe, the grand department store, with a famous food hall on its upper floor. It is an easy way to see what Berliners buy for dinner.

Where to walk

Do not walk the whole Ku'damm. The first section has chain shops and little else. Instead, turn off near Fasanenstraße, where the Literaturhaus has a garden café and the Käthe Kollwitz Museum shows her prints and sculpture, then continue to Savignyplatz. Under the S-Bahn arches around that square you find the bars, bookshops and restaurants that give the area its life, and it is calmer than the boulevard itself. You can also reach the western edge of Tiergarten from the Zoo in a few minutes on foot.

Who it suits

Shoppers, families going to the Zoo and anyone curious about West Berlin's story. If you are staying for only a short trip, give City West a half day, ideally after a morning on the avenue Unter den Linden, to compare the two halves of the old divided city. We would skip it for nightlife; for that, head east.