Located in an old district of Berlin, Spandau Citadel is a well-preserved fortification edifice designed in Renaissance style. It is completely surrounded by water and is overlooking Spandau from its Julius tower. The modern stronghold originally was constructed in 16th century and despite not significant damages over the time, still preserved its royal appearance. As far as we grasped from the brief history of the fortification in the museum, this happened due to the fact that the fortress waved the white flag at least twice — during Napoleon’s and Red Army sieges almost right away.
One can enter the courtyard quite easy — no fee is required (at least on workdays we assume), as there is also a building where designers rent space for studios. Notably, Citadel also hosts theatre performances and music events, exhibitions. More info can be found on the official website.
The entrance to the museum costs only 4,5 EUR. You will get an access to the museum and be able to go over to the bastions and Julius tower that overlooks the city.
Museum hosts some items that were found during archeological excavations and replicas of soldiers’ uniform and weapons, along with information on Citadel itself.
Then one can ascend the old wooden staircase to reach the top of Julius tower.
The territory is not that large, but a visitor can access 3 out of 4 bastions. Just walk around on a beautiful sunny day to take pics and indulge yourself with the fact that you finally got out somewhere.
Mind that museum is located not only in the building near cashiers’ desk. As we later found out in the middle of the courtyard is a small building that has exhibition of cannons, and also the building adjacent to the main one has also some exhibition.
Finally, after you visited everything or just got bored, walk around the Citadel in the park to see Havel river. The best view is that where the bridge is looming in the distance (Not on these pics).
All in all, if you ran out of ideas where to go and do not care about going to far-far-away Spandau, or you either are avidly interested in this part of the history and fortifications in general, we’d advice to go there and spend a few ours wandering along these old walls that have probably seen a lot.