Last updated on 10/25/2026
A first date lives or dies by the venue. Too loud and you cannot hear each other. Too formal and the conversation never gets going. Too tightly planned and neither of you dares leave early. Our ten suggestions therefore have one thing in common: they give the evening something to do and talk about, and they can be cut short or stretched out at any point. At Boardroom in Schoeneberg you sit surrounded by shelves of board games, and the first round takes the awkwardness out of getting acquainted. At the Maerchenbrunnen in Volkspark Friedrichshain you walk past figures from the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, which costs nothing and offers plenty to talk about. And at freiheit fuenfzehn in Koepenick you sit right on the water, with a garden and a programme of its own. Add to that a planetarium, a waterfall in the middle of Kreuzberg, a greenhouse full of tropical plants and a bridge where the sunset over the railway tracks looks particularly good.
Viktoria Tkachenko
Dear singles, who does not know it? The first date is coming up and you have no idea where to go. I set out across Berlin and found ten places that really leave an impression, from the Märchenbrunnen to the Hotrod tour. Have fun trying them out!
A few steps from Nollendorfplatz, over four hundred board games line the shelves at Boardroom. The team will gladly help you choose a suitable game and explain the rules. Billing is time-based, starting from 2.50 Euros per hour, with no minimum or maximum duration. Coffee, tarte flambée, and homemade cookies are also available.
At the western tip of Volkspark Friedrichshain lies the Fountain of Fairytales: a cascade, a round fountain, and a semicircular arcade, framed by hedges and stone benches. Ten figures from the Brothers Grimm fairytales stand around the basin, along with fourteen stone animals on the balustrade. There is no entrance fee to visit the facility.
In the heart of Kreuzberg, the sixty-six-meter-high Kreuzberg rises, and the Viktoriapark surrounding it connects a twenty-four-meter-high waterfall with Schinkel's National Monument at the summit. In addition, there is an animal enclosure, a rose garden, a vineyard on the northern slope, and a beer garden. All of this costs nothing to enter.
In Köpenick's Old Town, behind historic walls, a garden opens directly onto the Spree, featuring lounge furniture, deck chairs, and a two-masted ship from 1891 moored at the bank. Additionally, there's a dedicated program including quiz nights for teams of two or more, bingo, concerts, and readings, with admission to the quiz night costing 10 Euros.
Top10 Club Perk
Exclusive for Top10 Club members
Value ~ €15
Under the thirty-meter wide dome on Prenzlauer Allee, the Zeiss Grand Planetarium projects onto a twenty-three-meter inner dome, featuring a star projector, eight planet projectors, and a sound system with forty-nine loudspeakers. The program ranges from science and concerts to readings and movies, with tickets starting at 12 Euros.
The Great Tropical House in the Dahlem Botanical Garden is a self-supporting hall structure from 1906 and 1907, sixty by thirty meters wide and twenty-three meters high. Inside, a piece of tropical forest grows with giant bamboo, screw pine, and cycads. A day ticket for the entire garden costs 10 Euros, reduced it is 5 Euros.
Between Ostkreuz and Warschauer Straße, the Modersohnbrücke crosses a railway yard that opens up a wide view to the west. The steel structure is a good seventy-two meters long and just over twenty meters wide, has neither benches nor a kiosk, but it has become known throughout Berlin as the spot for watching the sunset over the tracks.
On Akazienstraße, Viani Schöneberg combines a delicatessen, deli, and café: at the front, the fresh counter with antipasti, behind it over three thousand Italian specialties from around four hundred artisan producers. There's also focaccia, soups, salads, and coffee from espresso to cappuccino, available outside when the weather is good.
The Hotrod Tour Berlin starts on the RAW grounds in Friedrichshain with single-seater vehicles of around thirteen HP, in which you drive yourself through the city behind a guide. The standard tour lasts about ninety minutes, passes thirteen sights, and costs from 79 Euros per person, with the helmet included in the price.
In a windowless Reichsbahn bunker on Reinhardtstrasse, the Boros Collection showcases contemporary art from 1990 onwards across approximately three thousand square meters. The building can only be entered with a guided tour in a small group, which lasts an hour and a half and is available in German or English. The ticket costs 20 Euros.
