Germany is one of my happy places. Germany has hugely underrated food, (perhaps unexpectedly) warm and wonderful people and an enthralling history.

While France for me is synonymous with shared experiences with family, Germany is synonymous with shared experiences with friends. I think almost every time I’ve been to Germany it’s been with friends.

The first time I visited Germany was back in 2008 when Interrailing around Europe with friends from university. 

I dug out my journal from this trip. My first experience of Berlin was getting lost on the U-Bahn for two hours while trying to meet up with some friends before going out on an all-nighter.  

I had a lot of fun this afternoon tracing down our route from my scribbled notes. I’d love to go back to many of the bars like Silberfisch, but the place with the most interesting story is Studio 54.

When we visited back in 2008, we were all completely mesmerised by Studio 54. Studio 54 was a crumbling hunk of a building with an art commune, surreal sculpture park and a beach bar with mesmerising techno music. Every surface of Studio 54 was covered with colourful, thought-provoking graffiti.

After a little reading up, I’ve learned its actual name was Arthouse Tacheles. It was originally built as a department store before becoming. After being damaged in World War II, the building was partly demolished, but the rest left and neglected as the East German government had no funds to renovate it.

Tacheles was then planned to be demolished in 1990, but luckily it was spared this fate as it was taken over by a group of artists. Similarly to Christiania in Copenhagen, Tacheles was run as a cooperative and used to experiment with alternate lifestyles, art, music and various installations. The building gradually morphed into an attraction in its own right before being finally vacated in 2012. It’s sadly now being redeveloped into a mix of retail and apartments.

More recently, the last time I got to leave Denmark was for an aborted Oktoberfest trip to Munich. Even though Oktoberfest may have been cancelled we still managed to catch up with some really close friends and drinks few steins.

I’ll leave you with one quick tip. Back in 2015, I wrote a guide for things to do in Berlin. I have one important addition that I discovered a few years back - Vabali Spa and thermal baths. It’s like taking an Indonesian mini-break within your break in Berlin. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

Das ist alles, bis morgen!