Kreuzberg 36 is the postcode that became a personality — the old West Berlin corner that pressed against the Wall, filled up with Turkish families and squatters and punks, and never quite calmed down. This is the loud half of the district, walked from its noisiest junction to the slow green line of the Landwehrkanal and back up.
Start at Kottbusser Tor. Don't try to like Kotti on arrival; just walk east along Oranienstraße, past the grocers and the late bars, to Oranienplatz. Then drop south to the canal. The Landwehrkanal is where the noise drains out of the walk — plane trees, cobbled banks, the Paul-Lincke-Ufer on the north side and the Türkenmarkt on the Maybachufer opposite, busiest on a Tuesday or Friday afternoon when the fabric and the vegetables go up.
Follow the water east, skirt the top of Görlitzer Park rather than crossing it, and surface at Schlesisches Tor under the elevated U1. The whole of 36 in one afternoon: the shouting and the still water, which turn out to be the same neighbourhood.
