Best picnic spots in Berlin: 14 parks and lakes, 7 with BBQ
Berlin’s 14 best picnic spots, plus the 7 places the city officially lets you barbecue. Wannsee is €6.50; bathing season ends 15 September. Checked August 2026.
The best picnic spots in Berlin are Tempelhofer Feld, Volkspark Friedrichshain and the Grunewald lakes. The city’s official list allows barbecues in seven parks and squares; in every other one, a blanket is fine and a grill is a fine.
The short version
- Most space: Tempelhofer Feld — 300 hectares on the old airport, open 6am–10:30pm in August, three barbecue zones, free.
- Best all-rounder: Volkspark Friedrichshain — Berlin’s oldest public park. The Neuer Hain barbecue lawn must be booked online; slots start at 2pm, and the grill badge goes back half an hour before sunset.
- Picnic plus a swim: Schlachtensee and Krumme Lanke, two of Berlin’s 39 official bathing sites. The monitored bathing season ends 15 September.
- If you want sand: Strandbad Wannsee — €6.50 adult, €3.80 reduced, and its 2026 season closes on 13 September.
- The one to skip for a grill: the Großer Tiergarten. Barbecuing has been banned there since 2012, and across every green space in Lichtenberg since October 2022.
How we checked: prices, opening hours and barbecue rules below come from the operators’ own websites and the City of Berlin’s official pages, checked August 2026.
Contents
- The 14 spots, at a glance
- Where you can legally barbecue: the city’s seven zones
- The big parks: space, shade and a central lawn
- Picnics by the water: lakes and canals
- What a Berlin picnic actually costs
- What to pack, and where to buy it
- When to go: the dates that close the season
- How to find people to picnic with in Berlin
- How we chose these
- Frequently asked questions
The 14 best picnic spots in Berlin, at a glance
Fourteen places worth carrying a blanket to, split by the only question that actually changes your plan: can you light a grill there or not. Seven of the fourteen are on the city’s official barbecue list; the other seven are blanket-only.
| Spot | District | Barbecue? | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tempelhofer Feld | Tempelhof / Kreuzberg / Neukölln | Yes — 3 marked zones | Free |
| Volkspark Friedrichshain (Neuer Hain) | Friedrichshain / Prenzlauer Berg | Yes — online booking required | Free lawn; €20 refundable deposit for the grill badge |
| Görlitzer Park | Kreuzberg | Yes — 2 marked lawns | Free |
| Blücherplatz | Kreuzberg | Yes — lawn between Waterloo-Ufer and Zossener Straße | Free |
| Monbijoupark | Mitte | Yes — small marked area on Oranienburger Straße | Free |
| Mauerpark | Prenzlauer Berg | Yes — near the Bernauer Straße entrance, fixed hours | Free |
| Rudolf-Mosse-Platz | Wilmersdorf | Yes — Mecklenburgische Straße | Free |
| Großer Tiergarten | Mitte | No — banned since 2012 | Free |
| Viktoriapark | Kreuzberg | No | Free |
| Schlachtensee | Steglitz-Zehlendorf | No | Free |
| Krumme Lanke | Steglitz-Zehlendorf | No | Free |
| Strandbad Wannsee | Steglitz-Zehlendorf | No | €6.50 adult / €3.80 reduced |
| Strandbad Weißensee, Weißer See | Pankow | No | Paid; the operator publishes season tickets only (€239 / €149 reduced) |
| Landwehrkanal, Maybachufer | Neukölln | No | Free |
Picked your lawn? The blanket is the easy part. MITRA is for the other half — sending a picnic plan to people near you and finding out who is free this Sunday. Get MITRA on Google Play · Download on the App Store.
Where you can legally barbecue: the city’s seven zones
Barbecuing is banned across Berlin’s public parks and green spaces by default, and permitted only in specifically signposted areas that the district green-space office has approved. The city is blunt about the consequence: grilling in the wrong place can get expensive. Below is the full list as the city published it on 7 July 2026.
| Zone | Exactly where | Times / booking |
|---|---|---|
| Tempelhofer Feld | Three areas near the Tempelhofer Damm, Oderstraße and Columbiadamm entrances | Within park hours — 6am–10:30pm in August, 6:30am–9:30pm in September |
| Volkspark Friedrichshain | Neuer Hain | Pitches must be booked online in advance; slots start at 2pm, grilling until 10pm at the latest, and the grill badge must be returned half an hour before sunset |
| Görlitzer Park | The lawn opposite the artificial-turf sports field, and the one opposite the sledging hill | No booking listed |
| Blücherplatz | The lawn between Waterloo-Ufer and Zossener Straße | No booking listed |
| Monbijoupark | A small signposted area on Oranienburger Straße | No booking listed |
| Mauerpark | Near the Bernauer Straße entrance | Noon–8pm in June and September; noon–9pm in July and August |
| Rudolf-Mosse-Platz | Mecklenburgische Straße | No booking listed |
Two districts have gone the other way. Grilling in the Großer Tiergarten has been banned since 2012, and Lichtenberg has had a blanket ban across all of its public green spaces since October 2022. And the permission you found this morning is not permanent: in a long dry spell the district can suspend barbecuing at short notice, announced by press release and by notices posted in the park itself.
Three equipment rules catch people out even inside a legal zone. The city’s general position is that footless disposable barbecues and gas grills are not permitted — the first scorches the turf, the second is a safety call — though individual operators can differ, and the Neuer Hain explicitly allows gas grills alongside charcoal. Petrol and spirits as accelerant are forbidden everywhere; solid firelighters made of wax and wood wool are the accepted substitute. And on Tempelhofer Feld the operator adds its own detail: the grill’s legs must be at least 25cm long, no fire directly on the ground, and hot ash must not go into the plastic waste bins.
The big parks: space, shade and a central lawn
If you only learn three parks, learn these. Tempelhofer Feld is the one to beat for scale: 300 hectares of former airfield, opened as a public park in 2010, and by the city’s own description one of the world’s largest inner-city parks. The flatness that made it an airport is why the sunset here runs the whole width of the sky. Admission is free, the three barbecue zones sit near the main entrances, and in August the gates stay open until 10:30pm — enough that a picnic can start after work and still end in the dark. It is the same expanse people use for a long ride, a kickabout or a skate, so a blanket here folds easily into something to actually do.
Volkspark Friedrichshain is the best all-rounder and the one with real history: Berlin’s oldest public park, laid out between 1846 and 1848 on what is now the border between Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg and conceived from the start as a park for the people rather than the crown. It gives you what the Feld cannot — proper tree shade on a hot afternoon — plus the 1913 Märchenbrunnen with its stone sculptures of characters from traditional German fairy tales, and two small artificial mountains built from wartime rubble and demolished bunkers. Its barbecue lawn at the Neuer Hain is also the most administrative of the seven: see the booking detail below.
The Großer Tiergarten is the central option — 210 hectares by visitBerlin’s count, laid out in its present form by Peter Joseph Lenné between 1833 and 1838, wrapped around the Victory Column and running up to the Brandenburg Gate. It is the obvious pick when you want green without a journey. Just bring food that needs no fire, because this is the one big park where grilling has been off the table for over a decade.
Görlitzer Park in Kreuzberg is the loud, central-east option, with two marked barbecue lawns and a constant churn of people. Viktoriapark, also in Kreuzberg, is the one to climb: the Kreuzberg hill is the highest inner-city elevation in Berlin, it has a genuine waterfall running down the slope, and Schinkel’s national monument to the defeat of Napoleon stands at the top. The park was established from 1888. No grilling here, but the view back over the city from a blanket near the top is one of the better free things to do in Berlin.
Picnics by the water: lakes and canals
A lakeside picnic is the version of this that Berlin is unusually well set up for: the city monitors 39 official bathing sites, all of them inside Berlin rather than out in Brandenburg. The classic pairing is Schlachtensee and Krumme Lanke, two long, tree-lined lakes on the south-western edge, both on the official bathing list and both a short walk from their own stations — S-Bahn Schlachtensee and U-Bahn Krumme Lanke. They sit inside the Grunewald forest, which buys you shade and quiet — and rules out fire completely, since neither appears anywhere on the city’s barbecue list.
For sand rather than grass, Strandbad Wannsee is the one people mean when they say Berlin has a beach. It costs €6.50 for an adult and €3.80 reduced, and the season is nearly over: daily 9am–8pm until 30 August, then 10am–6pm until it closes for the year on 13 September. Weißer See in Pankow is the easy north-eastern option — the official bathing site there is the Strandbad, which is privately run and charges admission. Its website currently publishes season tickets only (€239, €149 reduced, €99 for children aged three to twelve), so ask for the day rate at the gate. Plötzensee is the compact, central-north choice, also officially monitored.
If your idea of a picnic involves feet in the water and a cold drink, the banks of the Landwehrkanal along the Maybachufer in Neukölln are where a lot of the neighbourhood ends up on a warm evening. It is a canal, not a bathing site — so it is a sit-and-watch spot rather than a swim. For an afternoon that starts on a blanket and ends in the water, our guide to Berlin’s best lakes covers which ones are worth the S-Bahn ride, and finding a swimming partner matters more at the open-water lakes than at a pool.
What a Berlin picnic actually costs
Almost nothing, which is the point. Twelve of the fourteen spots in the table above are free to walk into. Only two charge: Strandbad Wannsee at €6.50 an adult and €3.80 reduced — €13 for two people, or €7.60 for two on the reduced rate — and the privately run Strandbad Weißensee, whose site lists season tickets only. Everything else you might pay is optional or refundable.
The one genuinely fiddly cost is the barbecue lawn at the Neuer Hain in Volkspark Friedrichshain, and it is worth spelling out because the mechanics are unusual. Reservations can only be made online through the park’s booking portal. Once you arrive, you collect a grill badge from the Kiosk Neuer Hain against a €20 deposit and an ID, or a €50 deposit without one — and the deposit comes back if you follow the barbecue rules. You need to bring a large rubbish bag to get the badge at all; if you forget, bags are 50 cents at the kiosk. A pitch takes a maximum of ten people, and you can rent up to two beer-table sets on site against ID and a €50 deposit. Weekend and public-holiday slots book out early.
A €6.50 ticket is the cheap part of a day at Wannsee. The expensive part is having nobody to go with — which is exactly what MITRA is for: post the plan, see who nearby says yes. Get MITRA on Google Play · Download on the App Store.
What to pack, and where to buy it
A blanket, food that survives the heat, more water than you think, a layer for when the sun drops, and a bag to carry your rubbish out. That last one is not just etiquette: at the Neuer Hain it is literally the price of admission to the grill.
The local move is to stock up on the way rather than in advance. Spätis — the late-opening corner shops on practically every block — carry cold drinks, bread, snacks and ice, and many keep Sunday hours that supermarkets do not. Markets and bakeries fill in the rest. If you plan to grill, bring your own barbecue with legs, tongs, solid firelighters rather than petrol, and a bottle of water for the coals. The city’s own complaint about park barbecues is rubbish and the rats it attracts, so leaving nothing behind is the difference between these zones staying open and quietly disappearing.
When to go: the dates that close the season
Two hard dates matter for the rest of 2026. Berlin’s official bathing season — the window in which the state health office actually monitors water quality at those 39 sites — runs from 15 May to 15 September. And Strandbad Wannsee shuts for the year on 13 September, dropping to 10am–6pm from 31 August. After the middle of September a lake picnic is still a picnic; it just stops being a swim with any published water-quality check behind it.
The barbecue zones follow the light rather than a date. Mauerpark’s published hours drop from noon–9pm in August to noon–8pm in September, and Tempelhofer Feld closes its gates an hour earlier in September than in August. Within the season, weekday evenings are the quietest window we have found. Because shops close on Sundays in Germany, Berliners default outdoors, so the shaded lakeside patches go early on a hot Sunday — go in the morning or accept the company. If you want a wet-weather backup in your pocket, we keep a list of rainy day activities in Berlin for the afternoon the forecast turns.
15 September is closer than it looks. Pick one lake from the table, set a time, and send it to people nearby on MITRA before the season closes. Get MITRA on Google Play · Download on the App Store.
How to find people to picnic with in Berlin
A picnic is the lowest-pressure way to spend real time with people in this city. There is no booking, no skill level, no cost barrier and no ticking clock — you put a blanket down and people drift in, stay an hour or stay until dark. Compared with meeting for one coffee, where the format quietly demands constant conversation, a picnic lets talk rise and fall around food, a frisbee, a swim. The shared thing carries the social weight so you do not have to.
That matters here more than in most cities. A lot of people in Berlin arrived from somewhere else and rebuilt their lives without the circle they grew up with — full calendars, plenty of acquaintances, few easy recurring hangouts. A standing summer picnic fixes that cheaply: it scales from two people to twenty, and “come by the Feld around six” is far easier to say yes to than a planned dinner. The genuinely hard part is having someone to text in the first place, which is the same problem behind making friends in Berlin generally.
MITRA is built for exactly that gap. You open the app, send a picnic plan to people near you, and whoever is free and interested says yes — then you agree the park and the time between you. Nothing pairs you off automatically; you choose who to reach out to and they choose whether to come. Say whether it is a quiet blanket at Schlachtensee or a full Grillen at the Neuer Hain, and the people who turn up are the ones who wanted that.
How we chose these
Every barbecue permission in this guide comes from the City of Berlin’s official grilling-areas page, last edited on 7 July 2026, cross-checked against the operators for Tempelhofer Feld and the Neuer Hain booking portal. Bathing-site status and the season dates come from the state health office’s bathing-water pages, and the Wannsee prices and hours from Berliner Bäder-Betriebe. Park facts come from berlin.de and visitBerlin. Anything we could not confirm on a primary source this month — including the Mauerpark flea market’s exact hours, whose operator site is currently unreachable, and Strandbad Weißensee’s day-ticket price, which its site does not publish — was cut rather than guessed. Barbecue permissions are set by the districts and can be withdrawn at short notice, so check the city’s page before you carry a grill across town.
Frequently asked questions
Where are the best picnic spots in Berlin?
Berlin’s picnic hotspots are its big open parks and its lake shores. Tempelhofer Feld gives you the most space at 300 hectares, Volkspark Friedrichshain adds shade and a bookable barbecue lawn, and the Großer Tiergarten is the most central at 210 hectares. For a picnic with a swim, Schlachtensee and Krumme Lanke in the Grunewald are both official bathing sites, and Strandbad Wannsee costs €6.50 for an adult.
Can you barbecue in Berlin parks?
Only in signposted areas the district has approved. Barbecuing is banned by default across Berlin’s public parks and green spaces, and the city’s official list names seven places where it is allowed: Tempelhofer Feld, Volkspark Friedrichshain, Görlitzer Park, Blücherplatz, Monbijoupark, Mauerpark and Rudolf-Mosse-Platz. A blanket picnic with no fire is fine almost anywhere.
Do you need a booking to barbecue in Berlin?
At Volkspark Friedrichshain, yes. Pitches on the Neuer Hain barbecue lawn can only be reserved online through the park’s booking portal, with slots starting at 2pm and grilling permitted until 10pm at the latest. You collect a grill badge on site against a €20 deposit with ID, or €50 without, refunded if you follow the rules — and it has to be handed back half an hour before sunset. The other listed zones show no booking requirement.
Which Berlin lakes are best for a picnic and a swim?
Schlachtensee and Krumme Lanke in the Grunewald are the classic pairing, both on the city’s list of 39 official bathing sites and both a short walk from their own stations — S-Bahn Schlachtensee and U-Bahn Krumme Lanke. Strandbad Wannsee is the sandy option at €6.50 adult and €3.80 reduced. Note that grilling is not permitted at any of them.
When does Berlin’s swimming season end?
Berlin’s official bathing season runs from 15 May to 15 September, which is the window in which the state health office monitors water quality at the city’s official bathing sites. Strandbad Wannsee closes earlier still: it runs daily 9am to 8pm until 30 August 2026, then 10am to 6pm until 13 September.
What should I pack for a Berlin picnic?
A blanket, food that survives the heat, plenty of water, a layer for when the sun drops, and a bag to carry your rubbish out. Spätis are the easy stop on the way and many keep Sunday hours that supermarkets do not. If you plan to grill, bring a barbecue with legs, tongs, solid firelighters rather than petrol, and water for the coals — the city’s general rule is that footless disposable grills and gas grills are not permitted, though the Neuer Hain allows gas.
Can a barbecue permit be withdrawn?
Yes. District green-space offices can suspend barbecuing at a designated zone at short notice, most often during long hot dry spells when the fire risk is high. The districts publish this by press release and post notices in the park itself, and park staff check that the ban is being observed. Lichtenberg has gone further with a general ban across all of its public green spaces since October 2022.
Is it legal to drink alcohol in Berlin parks?
Berlin has no general public drinking ban, which is why a beer or a bottle of wine is a normal part of a picnic here — but we could not find an official page stating it in those words, so treat it as local practice rather than a rule you can quote. The expectation is consideration: keep the noise down, leave no broken glass, and take everything home. Individual sites and events set their own rules, so watch for posted signs at lakes and in nature reserves.
Want to keep reading?
- Best lakes in Berlin
- Free things to do in Berlin
- Things to do in Berlin on a Sunday
- Beach bars in Berlin
- How to find a swimming partner in Berlin
- How to make friends in Berlin
Berlin gives you the lawn, the lake and — in seven specific places — the fire. The rest of it is who is sitting on the blanket, and that is the part worth being deliberate about while the season is still open.
Berlin first, other EU cities on the roadmap. MITRA helps you meet people nearby who want to do the same thing at the same time — starting with a blanket and a Sunday. Get MITRA on Google Play · Download on the App Store.
Follow us on Instagram @mitra.app for more ways to meet people through the activities you love. Berlin first. Bucharest and more EU cities on the roadmap.
Sources
Berlin.de (official) — Grilling Areas in Berlin, last edited 7 July 2026: https://www.berlin.de/en/parks-and-gardens/2431087-4407152-grilling-areas-in-berlin.en.html
Tempelhofer Feld (Grün Berlin, operator) — Barbecue rules: https://www.tempelhoferfeld.de/en/service-infos/besuch-planen/barbecue-rules/
Tempelhofer Feld (operator) — Plan your visit, opening hours: https://www.tempelhoferfeld.de/en/service-infos/plan-your-visit/
Berlin.de (official) — Park Tempelhofer Feld, 300 hectares, opened 2010 (opening hours on this page are older than the operator’s; we follow the operator): https://www.berlin.de/en/parks-and-gardens/3561883-4407152-park-tempelhofer-feld.en.html
Berlin.de (official) — Volkspark Friedrichshain: https://www.berlin.de/en/parks-and-gardens/3560363-4407152-volkspark-friedrichshain.en.html
Neuer Hain (operator) — Grillen im Volkspark, badge deposit and rules: https://www.neuer-hain.de/grillen-im-volkspark
Neuer Hain (operator) — Grillwiese booking portal: https://pretix.eu/neuer-hain/Grillwiese/
Berlin.de (official) — Viktoriapark: https://www.berlin.de/en/parks-and-gardens/3560783-4407152-viktoriapark.en.html
visitBerlin (official Berlin tourism) — Tiergarten, 210 hectares, Lenné 1833–1838: https://www.visitberlin.de/en/tiergarten
Lageso (Berlin state health office, official) — Badegewässer, bathing season 15 May to 15 September, 39 official bathing sites: https://www.berlin.de/lageso/gesundheit/gesundheitsschutz/badegewaesser/
Lageso (official) — List of Berlin bathing sites: https://www.berlin.de/lageso/gesundheit/gesundheitsschutz/badegewaesser/liste-der-badestellen/
Berliner Bäder-Betriebe (operator) — Strandbad Wannsee prices and season: https://www.berlinerbaeder.de/baeder/detail/strandbad-wannsee/
Strandbad Weissensee (operator) — admission: https://www.strandbadweissensee.de/strandbadeintritt
