Vintage clothing. Rare used books. Old East German coins. GDR and USSR war memorabilia. Bargain hunters find these and much more strolling through Berlin’s many Flohmarkt (flea markets). Seeking out treasure among the assorted Flohmarkt nick-knacks is an wonderful way for anyone with avid enthusiasm to discover more about the past and all that went with it in Germany’s historic capital city.
Here are my favorite Berlin flea market locations:
Staying at the Hotel Everland feels like spending the night in a 1970s shagadelic bachelor pad.
There aren’t many hotels that might have traveled more around Europe than its guests. Then again there’s no hotel like the one-room Everland.
This pre-fab capsule, designed by a pair of Swiss artists who cryptically go by L/B (Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann), was built to be mobile. After stints at Zurich’s Expo.02, on the Shores of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland, and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Leipzig, Germany the Everland is now atop the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. At its current location this hotel might have the best Eiffel Tower view of any in the city.
Most people would not voluntarily live in the middle of a remote lava field. Artist César Manrique decided to build his dream house there.
From the shores of Lake Malaren in Sweden, the Utter Inn looks like a bright red gardening shack stuck improbably in the middle of the lake. That visible section of the Inn includes a kitchenette and little dining area surrounded by an outdoor terrace. But what makes the Utter Inn really cool is part you can’t see from shore: the bedroom is down a ladder below the water! The sleeping quarters, submerged 3 meters (10 feet) underwater has windows with fish views on all sides.
Many of the historical myths and stories of Ireland involve fighting with England, Wales and Scotland. So it is with the legend of the Giant’s Causeway, which folklore says was built by the giant Finn McCool so that he could walk from Northern Ireland to Scotland to do battle with his nemesis. Supposedly, the battle didn’t go so well for Finn McCool; he retreated, tearing up the causeway as he went, except for the portion that exists today.
It sounds like the sloppy half of The Odd Couple, but really The Room Mate Oscar is the most hip hotel on one of the most elegant squares in the whole of Madrid.
London’s Amora is like no museum you toured in grade school. This self-described “Academy of Sex & Relationships” is like an erotic theme park (without the rides).
