It's one of West Berlin's retail traditions: the shopping areas around Ku'damm, Tauentzienstrasse and Breidtscheidplatz hold a bi-annual shopping evening, when shops open until midnight, timed to coincide with the dates the clocks are changed (from summertime to wintertime, or vice-versa).

This year, clocks go back on the 27th of October, so this will be the date of the 15th Long Night of Shopping (in German: Lange Nacht des Shoppings. Around 300 shops, boutiques, restaurants, bars etc. will be participating. There'll also be various events going on (such as a fair, which in Berlin means long lines of stalls selling tat and China-Pfanne), and around 500,000 visitors are expected (two good reasons why you won't catch the Penguin there).

More information at the website (http://www.lange-nacht-des-shoppings.de/), but don't rely too much on the English version because it's still talking about the event in March.

Posted at 12:36 PM in