The crocodile hall
A bridge you cross directly above them.
Manfred Brückels — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Rijksmuseum — CC0 · Ji-Elle — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Edelmauswaldgeist — CC0
The Berlin Aquarium is a historic three-storey building attached to the zoo, opened in 1913 and at the time among the most advanced facilities for displaying aquatic life anywhere. Its exterior alone rewards a look: sculptures of dinosaurs and extinct reptiles mounted on the stone wall. The layout is vertical and clearly reasoned: the ground floor for fish in its large tanks, the middle floor for reptiles and amphibians — crocodiles, turtles and snakes in warm tropical settings — and the upper floor for insects and invertebrates, with a butterfly house. Its best-known section is the crocodile hall: an open tropical room at high humidity with a bridge you walk across, crocodiles swimming in the water directly beneath you. The building is fully enclosed and climate-controlled, making it one of the better options on a wet Berlin day or in deep winter — and its position against the zoo allows combining the two on a joint ticket.
A bridge you cross directly above them.
On the upper floor with the invertebrates.
Budapester Strasse 32, 10787 Berlin
Berlin Zoological GardenBerlin's zoo is the oldest in Germany, opened in 1844 with animals the king gave4 minutes walk4.6
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial ChurchThe Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is Europe's most famous deliberately preserve5 minutes walk4.7
Museum fur FotografieBerlin's photography museum is built around a single archive: the collection of 8 minutes walk4.5
C/O BerlinC/O Berlin is an independent institution for photography, founded in 2000 and no9 minutes walk4.7
Victory ColumnThe Victory Column is a tall stone column in the middle of the Tiergarten park, 15 minutes walk4.5In good weather the zoo deserves your time first and is far larger. But the aquarium becomes the smarter choice in rain or hard cold, being fully enclosed and heated — and if you plan to see both, the combined ticket makes the question moot, since it costs less than two separate ones.