A 3-Day Berlin Weekend with Friends

The East Side Gallery, the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall, runs along the Spree covered in murals by artists from around the world, painted in the years after it fell. No ticket, no queue, any pace. Cross the Oberbaumbrücke at the far end and you're in Kreuzberg. Otherwise stay in Friedrichshain and head for Boxhagener Platz and Simon-Dach-Straße, a dense grid of casual bars, cheap eats and beer gardens where nothing needs booking and the group can drift between three bars without a plan.

Markthalle Neun, a restored 19th-century market hall in Kreuzberg just across the river, sets rotating food stalls around long shared tables, which suits a group better than most sit-down restaurants. It also leaves you close to the same evening's nightlife.

Tempelhofer Feld is a whole airport handed to the public: the runways and taxiways of the former Tempelhof Airport, now a park so large you can bike, skate, kite-surf on grass or claim a patch of tarmac far from anyone. There are no sights. Rent bikes or blades at a stand near the entrances and loop the old runways at your own speeds; it is flat and open enough to see across, so the group splits and regroups without losing anyone. Be as loud or as quiet as you like.

Take the group to Museum Island, a cluster of major museums on an island in the Spree. The Neues Museum holds the bust of Nefertiti, the most famous object on the island, and the Altes Museum next door has classical antiquities for a second stop. Pick one museum and one collection rather than moving a big group through several buildings.

Mauerpark sits on a stretch of the Wall's former death strip, and its open-air amphitheatre hosts a long-running, unscripted public karaoke on Sundays from roughly spring to early autumn, weather permitting. It is great spectator sport whether or not anyone in your group dares to sing, and the Sunday flea market runs year-round. Finish up high at Klunkerkranich, a rooftop bar on a parking garage above a Neukölln shopping centre: deck chairs, a small garden, a wide view across the rooftops. Go in through the mall and up the lifts.

Prater Garten in Prenzlauer Berg is one of Berlin's oldest beer gardens: a big shaded courtyard of long communal benches, made for easy, no-booking evenings. The garden is a warm-weather draw, but the attached Gaststätte pours the same beer indoors year-round, so it holds up on a cold or rainy night.