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Gay Berlin: A Guide for LGBT Travelers

Updated: April 12, 2022

Berlin is the self-proclaimed gay and lesbian capital of Europe. Given the large number of gay bars and parties, gay-friendly hotels, street festivals and Pride events year-round, Berlin is a mecca for LGBT travelers.  

We've created this post to navigate you to the gay Berlin resources and activities you'll want to know about.

 

 


GAY WALKING TOURS 

Queer Berlin Walking Tour

This 4-hour tour visits Schoeneberg, Berlin's primary gay neighborhood. Your guide will share stories of gay and lesbian German heros. You will stop at one of Berlin's oldest queer bars and also at the Gay Museum in Kreuzberg.

Gay Culture Bike Tour 

Gay Pride parade Berlin

Cover a lot of ground in 3 hours by riding through the gay neighborhood of Berlin, see the city's gay monuments and historic and modern gay bars. Ride past sites that were significant to prominent gay Berlin figures like David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich.

Out in Schöneberg

In this 90-minute tour, you will see a lot, including the Nationalhof, the gay rights movement's ballroom between 1924 and 1932 and learn about gay Berlin in the 1920s.  You'll visit the lesbian quarter along the Schwerin Straße, and much more.

Rainbow Gay Tours 

Offers several gay-friendly different tours including a City Center Tour, a Berlin Neighborhoods Tour, and a Gay Nightlife tour. When booking, try using the voucher code 'PATROC' to get a discount of 10%.


FREE TOURS FOR EVERYONE

Alternative Berlin

These free tip-based tours will take you beyond the tourist destinations to the heart and soul of the city. We recommend their highly regarded Street Art & Grafitti Tour, as Berlin is the capital of Street Art.

Free Tours by Foot

While our tours are not specifically geared towards gay culture and history in Berlin, our tours are inclusive and welcome everyone! We offer pay-what-you-wish walking tours and also have many self-guided tours of Berlin neighborhoods for you to enjoy for free.

 



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USEFUL GAY BERLIN WEBSITES

Berlin Gay Travel Guide by Patroc 

Gay Berlin Cafe

This extensive guide to Gay Berlin is presented in a very user-friendly website. It simply conveys a lot of information about the things you want to know. 

Find out about gay hotels, cafes, and restaurants, bars, clubs & parties, cruising, cinemas, saunas and shops.

They offer online maps of the different LGBT friendly neighborhoods of Schöneberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg, Neukölln, Mitte and Friedrichshain.

OUT in Berlin

The ultimate resource to find out about all things LGBT happening in Berlin.

This site lists the of the usual suspects: gay neighborhoods, gay pride events, queer cinema, nightlife, hotels—and a handy calendar of what’s going on every night.

Gay Cities: BerlinGay Berlin Bar

A fabulous guide with lots of listings of gay bars & clubs, restaurants, bathhouses, saunas & sex clubs, gay-friendly hotels, B&Bs, shops & boutiques. 

Gay Welcome Berlin

Very useful site for its events calendar. It also has news articles about gay culture in Berlin.

Travel Gay Europe

A pretty good guide to Berlin with a helpful Gay Berlin Map and a cut-to-the-chase itinerary for "Two Days in Berlin".  

This site has quite a bit of adverts, do your best to ignore them and you will find some juicy bits of information.

 


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GAY HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL SIGHTS

Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under Nazism

During the Nazi era, gay men were one of the many groups persecuted and killed under the regime.

These victims of Nazism were not officially recognized after 1945 and throughout the 1950s and 1960s the infamous Paragraph 175 (which made homosexuality a crime) was still included in German Criminal laws.

In 2003, after 10 years of prodding by gay activists, Berlin approved the erection of a memorial to the gay victims of the Nazis.

It wasn’t until 2008 that the memorial was completed. It is located in beautiful Tiergarten, near the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.


Schwules Museum

Founded in 1985, in what was then still communist East Berlin, this non-profit museum in the Schöneberg neighborhood is one of the largest institutions that documents LGBT culture throughout the world, with a focus on Berlin and Germany.

In addition to its vast archive of relevant material, the Museum has rotating exhibits and events related to LGBT history, art and culture.

 


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LGBT EVENTS IN BERLIN

Stadtfest Berlin  - Europe’s biggest Lesbian-Gay City Festival every July. 

 

 

Lesbian and Gay Festival Park in Friedrichshain  - every August

XPOSED International Queer Film Festival  - every May

Check our posts on things to do in Berlin by month for activities for everyone.

 


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TIPS ON VISITING BERLIN

In addition to walking, bike, and bus sightseeing tours, there are many attractions to see as well as tips on how to travel around the city, how to save money or how to do things for free. 

Below are some of the top articles from our Berlin blog.

 


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About The Author

Anne Wittig

Anne was born in East Berlin and came of age in the unified city. She has an intimate relationship with her city of birth and still calls Berlin home. For the past 10 years, she has managed and written Free Tours by Foot's Berlin blog, detailing the best places to go, where to stay, and what to do in her hometown. This blog has been featured on Berlin's official website, mainstream press like Berlingske, and local blogs like Berlinforallthefamily.com. Over 14,000 visitors to Berlin have taken a tour from Free Tours by Foot.
Updated: April 12th, 2022
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