Ku-Damm - Kurfürstendamm, Berlin

Kurfurstendamm is a green tree-lined boulevard that streches for several kilometres to the Western outskirts of Berlin, starting from the Gedachtniskirche and the chaotic square around the Europahaus. Huge department stores, expensive hotels and upmarket housing are all lined on this nice boulevard making it one of the liveliest streets of Berlin for shoppers and tourists. Once famous Cafe Kranzler now has a substitute in form of a modern Kranzlereck building, but cafes and restaurants are not hard to find in this area, especially in side streets leading to nearby Savigny Platz.

Many sightseeing routes start from here and the huge transportation hub at Zoo bahnhof is also nearby, so reaching this shopping paradise shouldn't be a problem. Just bring your credit card and join the thousands of others!

This church is hard to miss on KuDamm...It is an old church that still stands despite the allied air raid of 1943...today, this church stands as a reminder of the war, and the damage that is caused by it. What is so special about this church, is that although the damage that's been done to it is still visible, an additional art nouveau style ceiling mosaic has been added to it, and blue stained glass is wrapped around it on the inside, making it look unique and interesting.

Entrance to this church is free, but it closes down in the evening, so you might wanna take a look at it before 7 pm...you can just pass through while your shopping of taking a walk on Kudamm.

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In 1871 Bismark decided to create in Berlin the street which was not conceding to the Champs Elysee in Paris. The prospectus was very elegant in the end of the nineteenth - the beginning of the twentieth century. In the twentieth years its luxury reached apogee. During the war it was almost completely destroyed, and now it is reconstructed. There were some original facades. But even it is now you feel, that the life here beats a key. There are a lot of expensive shops, hotels, night clubs.

Ku'Damm [short for Kurfürstendamm] is a part of Berlin filled with numerous cafés, shops, shopping malls aso. All in all, a great neighborhood with a lot of things to attract different kinds of people. I've just switched from one bar to another with my friend, just enjoying my time, checking out different kinds of beers & laughing till my lungs hurt. :) A really nice memory...

Kurfürstendamm, called the Ku'damm by Berliners is the commercial backbone of the western part of Berlin. It has 4km (2 1/2-mile) long , where you'll find the best hotels, restaurants, theaters, cafes, nightclubs, shops, and department stores. It's the most elegant and fashionable strip in Berlin. It makes a good walk but it is not something that remarkable if you've been to New York, London or Paris. I found East Berlin much more interesting than its Western counterpart.

Before hundred years an elegant business and residential districkt grew up outside of the traditional city centre. It’s name was DIE NEUE WESTEN or The New West. The first plans were made in 1875 an 25 year later the Deutsche Bank financed the built. Lot of luxurious houses, restaurants, offices, medical practices, pastry shops, night clubs, theatres and art galleries attracted the rich people. For example here are the Astor and the Marmohaus.

After the blockade and the building the Wall – the Kurfurstendam or like they call this boulevard the “Ku damm” became the centre of the western sector. The famous Hotel Kampinski and Café Kranzler are still there but renovated with a new look.

I started my first day in Berlin from walking streets around my hotel and then I took a walk along main boulevard and the most elegant street of the former West Berlin - Kurfürstendamm called usually shortly Ku-Damm - isn't it easier? Even in February morning it looked nice with its wide walkways on both sides and beautiful platano trees growing along.


I would like to have been there on 9th Nov. 1989 when the Berlin Wall was torn down and the East Berliners could walk along that street for the first time, add their Trabant cars driving along :-). Were they as much surpriced (even shocked) as I was when I saw "western" city (Vienna, Austria in 70') for the first time? Notice that in contrast to Poles, East Germans were not allowed to travel to any Western European country (even to former Yougoslavia) in 70' and 80' because they could easy "escape" to West Germany. Hmm... who would live in East Germany that time, only Soviet troops?


My points of interest at Ku-Damm:

- Emperor William Memorial Church (Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche),

- a few beautiful old houses,

- cafes and restaurants. I found a few places with tables put on the street, empty in February. It must be good place to relax, have a cup of coffee or a drink and first to watch people in warmer months, I am sure;

- a few examples of small and large, pretty modern architecture,

- luxury and elegant stores (clothes, shoes by Gino Rossi, cosmetics, cars esp.) including of world's known designers, department stores as well; add postcards sold along the street and post office when I could buy postage stamps.

It big, it's brash, you can strut your stuff and shop 'till you drop. No wonder this was the showcase of the capitalist West for the communist East! 15 years after the Fall of the Wall, the Ku-Damm is a huge thoroughfare that reminds the traveller of the Champs-Elysées, but with less elan and more pizzazz!

KaDeWe (as Kaufhaus Des Westens) is called) is no Harrods or Lafayette, althought it's huge and the food court is awesome, so you're better off just walking the streets and hop in and out of shops. It's hedonist heaven!

The Ku´Damm or Kurfuerstendamm is a long shopping mile starting at the northeast end at the Gedächtniskirche and reaches at the southwest end the Rathenauplatz (square). It is in long tradition one of the most important avenues of the city where the city life took place. You find a lot of exquisit designer stores on both sides of the street.

Another mighty fine of architecture in Berlin. It looks like 2 shackles inter-locked between one another.
This is the so-called Berlin Sculpture.

It symbolizes the close ties between East and West, commemorate the city's 750th anniversary in 1987, situated in the middle of Tauentzienstrasse.