The Scheunenviertel — the "barn quarter," once the edge of the city where hay was kept clear of the centre's fires — became Berlin's Jewish heart and is now its most layered few blocks. This is a 2.6-kilometre walk that keeps ducking off the street and into courtyards, because that is where this neighbourhood lives.
Start at the Hackesche Höfe and walk the full chain of eight linked courtyards, the first tiled in shimmering Art Nouveau brick in 1906. Step straight next door into Haus Schwarzenberg, an alley left deliberately raw — street art, the Anne Frank Zentrum, and the Otto Weidt workshop where a brush-maker hid his blind Jewish employees from the Gestapo. Go in.
Then west to the New Synagogue, its gilded dome the landmark of Oranienburger Straße, saved from the 1938 pogrom by one policeman who refused to let it burn. Cut through Sophienstraße, the rare street that survived the war, and the quieter Sophie-Gips-Höfe. End back on Oranienburger Straße, dome behind you, with the S-Bahn overhead.
