10 Locations
Dahlem is one of Berlin's greenest and most genteel quarters, a leafy district in the southwest known for villas, museums and academia. Home to the Free University and the sprawling Botanical Garden, Dahlem offers a calmer, more spacious side of the city. This overview gathers Berlin locations around the neighbourhood.
The Botanical Garden and its glasshouses draw visitors year round, while the Dahlem museums cover ethnology and regional history. Tree lined streets, the Domaene Dahlem farm and estate, and easy access to the Grunewald forest make it a favourite for slow weekends. Cafes and the university campus add a gentle buzz.
Browse the venues below to explore Dahlem and its surroundings.
In Dahlem, not far from the Botanical Garden, the Königliche Gartenakademie (Royal Garden Academy) is much more than just a plant shop: Here, historic greenhouses meet an English garden school where hobby gardeners and professionals alike can develop their plant knowledge and design sense.
The esskultur in Dahlem sets up no buffet at all. Instead it stages individual fairy tale breakfasts at which Birgitt Claus reads aloud and cooks to match what she has read, once floral around the chrysanthemum for 35 euros, once oriental in a Bedouin tent with live Arabic music, and once as a full English teatime breakfast for 40 euros.
In Dahlem, where the southwest of Berlin almost feels like a village, Domäne Dahlem has been practicing real agriculture and animal husbandry for centuries, now as a recognized Bioland organic farm with an open-air museum. Here, children experience agriculture up close in a way hardly anyone would expect in a city of millions. The farm is even easily accessible by subway.
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.
43 hectares, 22,000 plant species, and fifteen show greenhouses between Dahlem and Lichterfelde: The Botanical Garden is large enough to get lost in, and that's precisely what makes it so suitable for a marriage proposal. The Great Tropical House from 1907 provides the backdrop, and the Italian Garden offers the tranquility.
The Berlin Botanical Garden stretches over 43 hectares between Dahlem and Lichterfelde and houses around 20,000 plant species. The complex includes fifteen display greenhouses, among them the Great Tropical House with giant bamboo and palms. To combat a boring Sunday, the order helps: first the outdoor area, then the tropics, and both in any weather.
A piece of jungle is hidden in Steglitz-Zehlendorf: The Great Tropical House in the Botanical Garden Berlin is one of the largest self-supporting greenhouses in the world, exchanging Berlin's winter grey for 25-meter-high tree giants and tropical warmth.
The Eierschale is located in the Landhaus Dahlem opposite the U-Bahn station Podbielskiallee and serves a large brunch buffet for 20.90 Euros on Sundays and public holidays. The name dates back to the fifties, when the venue was a meeting point for the West Berlin jazz scene. Today, it includes a terrace, garden, and stone oven pizza.
The Berlin Botanical Garden in Dahlem showcases approximately 20,000 plant species across 43 hectares; in autumn, maples and oaks glow in the North American section. If it gets too cold outside, the Great Tropical House from 1907 awaits with giant bamboo reaching 26 meters high. For autumn activities in Berlin, this means: Indian Summer and tropical warmth with a ticket for 10 euros.
The Botanical Garden in Berlin-Dahlem shines with the splendid colours of fall. On a sunny autumn day, a walk in the outside area of the garden is amazing, save the tropical greenhouse for a rainy day.