Berlin Cathedral

The Berliner Dom, Berlin Cathedral, is the largest church in the city, although the name oversells it: it has never been the seat of a bishop. It was built between 1894 and 1905 as the court church of the Hohenzollerns, the dynasty that ruled Prussia and then the German Empire, and the sheer bulk of it was meant to make exactly that point.

Inside, the Sauer organ with its more than 7,000 pipes fills the end of the nave, and the Hohenzollern crypt below holds around 90 sarcophagi of the family, one of the most important dynastic burial collections in Europe. The building was gutted by bombing in 1944 and took decades to restore, with the last work finishing well after reunification.

The climb to the dome walkway runs about 270 steps and gives you the best close-range view in Berlin: Museum Island directly below, the Spree, the Humboldt Forum and the TV Tower lined up in one direction. There is an admission charge for the interior, and services are open to anyone.

The cathedral stands on the Lustgarten, a large open lawn that doubles as a place for people to sit in summer, facing the Humboldt Forum, the rebuilt Berlin Palace that now houses museums. Museum Island, Unter den Linden and Alexanderplatz are all within a 10-minute walk, and the S-Bahn at Hackescher Markt plus several tram lines stop nearby.