Tempelhofer Feld

Tempelhofer Feld is the former Tempelhof airport, shut down in 2008 and handed to the public as a park. Nothing was landscaped: the two runways, the taxiways and the painted markings are all still there. In a 2014 referendum Berliners voted to keep it that way and block construction on the field, which tells you something about how the city feels about open space.

The scale is what surprises people. At roughly 1.5 square miles (about 4 km²) it is larger than Central Park, and from the middle you can see a flat horizon in every direction, something that almost never happens inside a European city. People cycle, skate, run the runways, fly kites and land-sail across the old aprons. There are community gardens along one edge and a designated barbecue area.

This was the airport of the Berlin Airlift. In 1948 and 1949, after the Soviet Union cut off road and rail access to West Berlin, American and British aircraft landed here around the clock for nearly a year to keep the western half of the city supplied. The enormous curved terminal building along the western edge dates from the 1930s and can be seen on a guided tour.

The field has several entrances, each next to a station: Tempelhof and Paradestraße on the U6, Boddinstraße, Leinestraße and Hermannstraße on the U8, plus the S-Bahn ring at Tempelhof and Hermannstraße. It borders Neukölln, Kreuzberg and Tempelhof, so it adds easily to a day in any of those neighborhoods. Sunset over the runways is the standard local recommendation, and admission is free.