These days it’s a popular shopping street with its own café culture, but shopping doesn’t have to be shallow. Follow Berlinsider this time and pay attention to get guided tour.

Start at Breidscheidtplatz, right next to the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche, and walk up to number 15, where the favourite pub of the writer Joseph Roth used to be. He wrote "The Radetsky March" there in 1932. Keep going up to the big crossing with Joachimstaler Strasse. Striaght in front is the Viktoria Areal, built by star Chicago architect Helmut Jahn. Just in front of it is the Kranzler Eck, Kudamm’s most famous café, rebuilt on its original site with a balcony for an impressive view over Ku’damm. Berlinsider can recommend the Kranzler’s Streuselkuchen, a particulary German cake made with either cherries, apples or plums with a crumble topping. Don’t forget to order it with cream.

Cake and coffee over, and the next building to stroll past is the Hotel am Zoo which has been open since 1910 and has welcomed, amongst others, Erich Kaestner, Heinrich Mann and Konrad Adenauer as its guests.

Culture comes next, and currently there is a Dali exhibition in the building that used to be a cinema and when by the name of “Filmbuehne Wien” until its closure in 2000.

Time for more coffee and cake, and what better place to stop than Café Reinhard in the Hotel Kempinski? Guests who have overnighted here include the Dalai Lama, Fidel Castro and Sopia Loren.

Next we move into designer fashion, with all the biggest names to be found between Knesebeck Strasse and Adenauerplatz. If you have a few thousand to spend on a handbag or an evening dress, you have come to the right place.

Shopping over, and time for more architecture. On the corner of Lewisham Strasse is, at 2 metres 70, the narrowest tall building in the city, again from Helmut Jahn.

As the favoured address of the prominent in Berlin, there are many memorial plates listing who lived where, Robert Koch being one famous Ku’damm resident. Typical Ku’damm architecture, so be seen on the way up to the Halensee S-Bahn, can be characterised by elegant buildings with small, railed front gardens.

The end of our walk is at the disputed piece of art by Wolf Vostell called the Concrete Cadillac.

That was a long walk for one day. Well done! You’ve earned a rest and a beer at one of the street cafes!

And we only looked at one side of Ku’damm. If you have got the energy to walk back along the other side, come on a holiday with Berlin Exploring. We suggest a visit to Ku’damm for one of your free days, and we’ll give you all the notes to accompany you, so come and check it out for yourself.

It’s that time of year when the leaves are a fresh bright green and the cherry blossom hangs in bunches on the trees. The walk starts at Krumme Lanke, a lake in a part of Berlin where large villas sit back on tree-lined avenues. It was to be an easy, flat 12km walk through the countryside to the Havel River on a Sunday to enjoy a change of scene from the city and to spend the time chatting, being quiet, thinking and just listening to the birds and feeling the warmth of the sun. The local residents, including red squirrels and a rare white-tailed sea eagle were also out in the Sunday sunshine.

After an hour and a half of walking the Havel was in sight and it seemed like a good time to stop for the picnic lunch of sandwiches and cake that had come along in the rucksack. But then plans changed. Lindwerder Island, a tiny island so close to the mainland you feel you could paddle to it, had just opened for the season. But the little ferry looked a better mode of transport.

You call the ferry by ringing the bell on the little jetty on the mainland and since the island is so close the ferryman hears it across the water. So over he came to collect the passengers for the princely sum of a euro for a return trip, and over went Berlinsider to explore.

The sandwiches in the bag became suddenly much less appealing once the restaurant came into view. Seats on the waterfront are the perfect viewing point for watching the sailing ships go by. Berlinsider decided to go for something fishy, with marinated herring fillets house-wife style, boiled parsley potatoes and a salad garnish. Berlinsider’s companion, always one for the beer and sausages, went for the beer and sausages. This time it was six Nuremberger sausages on a plate of sauerkraut with mustard, washed down by a dark wheat beer.

The menu was excellent with a range of locally-sourced, freshly cooked seasonal food, from river crab to locally-grown asparagus. Spring has undoubtedly come to Berlin when asparagus is in season and it is traditionally eaten with either clarified butter or more often hollandaise sauce. White aspargus from Beelitz, just outside Berlin, is a local delicacy and on our menu it was being served with just parsley potatoes, or various types of fish, or – Berlinsider’s favourite – with a Wiener schnitzel. Fresh, light, local white wines are the perfect accompaniment. April in Berlin has to mean an asparagus dinner at some point. After lunch, and back across the water to the mainland again, it was time for the rest of the walk back to Grunewald S-Bahn (the city train) and back home.