Berlin is full of wonderful surprises, and we see it every day from our outpost, Sir Savigny. Here are some surprising facts about the city we love.
THE FUN FACTS:
- If Sir Savigny is booked up for the night, don’t worry—Berlin night clubs are open 24 hours during the weekend. Between 40,000 and 50,000 people dance in Berlin’s clubs every weekend.
- A Turkish immigrant named Kadir Nurman who lived in Berlin is credited with inventing the doner kebap. There are 1,600 kebap restaurants in Berlin, and they sell more than 400,000 kebaps a day. The Germans call it döner.
- Try not to get too offended by Berliners’ characteristically harsh tone of voice, dubbed “the Berliner Schnauze”. Their kind message doesn’t match their blunt delivery.
- If you see eggs in massive glass tanks, don’t be alarmed. They’re traditional Berlin Soleier, pickled, hard-boiled eggs.
- Berlin has more waterways than Amsterdam, Stockholm and Venice combined.
- At the Galeries Lafayette in Berlin’s shopping district off of Friedrichstraße, you can actually buy over 320 gold items right out of a gold ATM.
- Berlin is over 9 times the size of Paris.
- The mayor of Berlin in 2004 tried to attract creative types to Berlin by calling Berlin “poor, but sexy.” It’s now the city’s unofficial tagline.
- Just a 10-minute walk away from Sir Savigny is the Berlin Zoological Garden, the oldest zoo in Germany. It was opened in 1844, and today is considered one of the best in the world, housing 1,380 different species and over 20,200 animals. Hence our Sir Savigny illustrations: