Prenzlauer Berg: Kollwitzplatz and the water tower
The Saturday market, a round 1877 water tower, and the church that helped end the GDR. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Senefelderplatz (U2)
Come up from the U2 and you're already in the *Kiez* — the close-grained neighbourhood that gives this walk its scale. Head north up Kollwitzstraße; the streets get prettier with every block.

2. Kollwitzplatz
The square at the centre of the restored east. The bronze Käthe Kollwitz sits on the green, after the printmaker who lived and worked nearby. On a Saturday the organic market fills the place; on any other day it's young families and good cafés. Go on the Saturday if you can — see the body note.

3. Wasserturm (water tower)
The round brick *Wasserturm* of 1877, Berlin's oldest, sits on its own grassed mound a block south-east. The SA used the basement as an early torture cell in 1933 — a quiet plaque marks it. Walk the ring of the mound; the tower is now flats.

4. Husemannstraße
The showpiece street — a full run of restored *Gründerzeit* tenement façades, stucco and balconies, done up for Berlin's 750th birthday in 1987 while the rest of the East crumbled. Walk it slowly and read it as theatre; that's what it was built to be.

5. Kulturbrauerei
A whole block of yellow-and-red brick — the old Schultheiss brewery, now a courtyard culture complex of cinemas, a small museum of GDR everyday life, and a Sunday-ish food market in the *Höfe* (courtyards). Wander in; the courtyards are free and the brickwork is the draw.

6. Gethsemanekirche
The red-brick 1890s church where, in October 1989, vigils for political prisoners drew crowds the Stasi couldn't disperse — one of the rooms where the GDR ended. Step inside if a service or exhibition is on; otherwise the plaque outside tells it.

7. Eberswalder Straße (U2)
The walk lands back on the U2 viaduct, under the yellow trains. Currywurst from Konnopke's under the tracks if you want the local ending. One stop back to where you started.

Prenzlauer Berg: Kollwitzplatz and the water tower