Hotels near Hamburger Bahnhof

By late afternoon, I made my way to Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Germany's leading museum of contemporary art. The museum is a former 19th-century railway terminus transformed into the city's primary home for post-1960 work by Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Anselm Kiefer, and Cy Twombly, alongside an ambitious rotating programme of new commissions.

Its Historic Hall is a vast iron-arched nave with enormous glazed windows, one of the most architecturally dramatic exhibition spaces in Europe. Iron arches curve above the crowd like the skeleton of an industrial cathedral. Evening light enters through enormous windows. Even before you encounter the art, the building itself is the experience.

Pro Tip: Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00 (Thursdays until 20:00); closed Mondays. Tickets EUR 14 standard / EUR 7 reduced; free under 18; free first Sunday of each month. Book online during Gallery Weekend Berlin to skip the queue.