If you only do one thing in Berlin, there is no better place than Tempelhofer Feld to feel the weight of history and the addictive energy of one of the world's most vibrant and libertine cities. This 953-acre former airport, now a public park, has become a playground that embodies the city that holds it. On any given day, you might see Syrian asylum seekers playing football outside a Nazi-era terminal, bikers cycling under the shadow of an abandoned 75m radar station and families barbecuing next to grounded Cold War-era aeroplanes.
Tempelhof has played a starring role in some of Europe's deepest horrors and greatest triumphs. It's where the past, present and future of the city constantly converse and negotiate with each other. You go to the Brandenburg Gate or Berlin Wall to see Berlin, but you go to Tempelhof to fall in love with it. In a city that's always becoming and never being, there is no better place for travellers to feel the spirit of one of the world's most vibrant and libertine capitals.
Tempelhof is so immense that its 10 entrances fall within three neighbourhoods in southern Berlin. To soak in the full scale of a space that's twice the size of Monaco, follow Herrfurthstrasse's cobblestones to the park's eastern entrance in Neukölln. At the end of the dead-end street, the former airport's vast, open expanse suddenly appears before you, unfurling towards the horizon. But instead of planes, it's kite-surfers and in-line skaters flying down the runway, the mammoth terminal building shrunken in the distance.
On any given day, some 10,000 people descend on the park, creating a spontaneous neighbourhood that never feels too crowded. The park holds every cross-section imaginable of the city's residents, from hard-nosed Berliners and queer refugees to Turkish grandparents and harried flatmates who just want to chill out with a book. As you walk along the runway, you'll spot community gardens, a circus school, an artists' workspace, a biergarten and an interactive art installation that doubles as a mini-golf course.
"The vastness of the site produces an almost overwhelming sense of space," reads a city brochure. "The effect is liberating; the independent citizen becomes a creative explorer once again." For Berliner Oumi Janta, Tempelhof is a place of freedom: "Where else in the world do you find an abandoned or closed airport where you can just walk – or in my case, skate – around and feel freedom?"
