HOW DO YOU HAVE BREAKFAST IN LICHTENBERG?
Hard shell, soft core: at first glance, Lichtenberg may seem a little bulky, quite large, gray and coarse. But it's worth taking a closer look! The city's easternmost district offers country life, classicist pomp and a Nordic coastal feel.
A little bit is Lichtenberg, the rough sister of Charlottenburg. Not only are the zoo and animal park related, but the two castles, Charlottenburg and Friedrichsfelde, also share personalities and history. While the Zoo train station was the gateway to West Berlin, the former eastern part of Berlin was reached via the then huge Lichtenberg train station. Reason enough for KPM, who was born in Charlottenburg, to take a closer look on site.
The true Lichtenberger usually starts the day well fortified with breakfast at home. Newspaper, sandwiches, eggs and coffee. However, district tourists can best fortify themselves for an extended tour with a bagel, waffles or cake from Nadia & Kosta. The small café is located in the romantic Kaskelkiez or Victoriastadt, formerly a historic working-class neighborhood with wonderful Wilhelminian-style houses, which essentially turn the area into an open-air museum.
Friedrichsfelde Palace in the Berlin Zoo
We then head across Rummelsburg Bay to Dark Matter, a former factory that has now become a hip, deep black light and sound gallery. If you prefer something less digital and more historical, get on your bike and ride up to the Stasi Museum and go to the archives in the former secret police headquarters. And once you're there, you can hop over to Pankow: just 15 minutes away is a true pearl of Berlin's architectural history: the Lemke House by Mies van der Rohe, a wonderfully sober box directly on Lake Weissensee, which is in... was built in the 1930s for just 16,000 marks.
If you're feeling hungry for lunch, the best way to go back to Lichtenberg is via the Dong Xuan Center and eat a pho, a curry or a Peking duck from one of the over 250 dealers in the wholesale market. Well fortified, you can then stroll through the zoo to Friedrichsfelde Castle, which was acquired in 1785 by Peter Biron, Duke of Kurland (the exact same duke who also commissioned our KURLAND service ) and expanded in a classicist style.
But the district is most exciting on weekends. In the Lichtenberg villages of Malchow and Wartenberg you feel like you're in the country, and at the Karlshorst trotting track you feel (almost) like you're in Ascot. That is, when Berlin's largest flea market is not taking place on the site, so that there are traders instead of horses. The best way to end the day is with a view of the water in the new Hafenküche restaurant, where Mathias Brandweiner is a sommelier who – as luck would have it – even once worked in KPM production.
The spring yellow Lichtenberg cup, the newest member of the Colors of Berlin family, ensures the perfect start to the Lichtenberg adventure. We have removed the iconic cup from the BERLIN service designed by Enzo Mari in 1996 together with the designers from KPM and are honoring the different parts of the city with their own color schemes. So you can live in Munich, but enjoy your morning pick-me-up like in Mitte, have your afternoon coffee in Tiergarten and drink your evening tea in Lichtenberg. Or which is your favorite district?
