The Best Christmas Shopping in Berlin

They call him the Weihnachtsmann here, Santa Claus. And he's going overboard again this year, too. He's everywhere, it seems. And he's been hanging around for weeks already. The Christmas season pretty much starts in October over here - they don't have to wait for Thanksgiving because they don't celebrate it - and I don't know how he does it, but I've found him in practically every department store I've been to so far. Of course, I've only visited the very best. At least he has good taste.

Take KaDeWe (Wittenbergplatz, www.kadewe.de), for instance. KaDeWe ("ka-day-vay") stands for "Kaufhaus des Westen" and means Department Store of the West. This is a reference to old Cold War West Berlin when each side felt compelled to showcase its "goods". It's the biggest department store in Europe and is often referred to as the Harrod's of Berlin. It offers its daily 80,000 visitors just about anything they can imagine on eight spacious and elegantly designed floors. There are over 380,000 items for sale here, some of the most popular among them being the exclusive cosmetics and jewellery. But not everybody who comes to visit KaDeWe comes here to buy things. It's a pleasure just to walk through the aisles and look. And many Berliners come for the culinary treats to be found in the impressive fine food section upstairs. The food hall up on the fifth floor is a fantastic place to eat, providing you can find a place to sit. Fresh delicacies like caviar, French pastries and exotic Japanese fish are flown in daily from all over the world.

And while you're in the "western" part of town, take a quick walk down the street to the Europa Center (Tauentzienstraße 9). The Europa Center is a classic among the older shopping malls of Berlin and can be found directly before the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church. There are over 100 shops and restaurants inside, many new and exclusive luxury shops among them, and there's a spacious cinema complex, as well.

From here it's just a hop, skip and a jump to the newly-reconstructed Kranzler-Eck (Kurfürstendamm 16-24). This new mall has become a Berliner favourite, a lieblings-meeting point, partially due to the fact that it is so beautiful architecturally. The legendary Café Kranzler still stands here at its base and is now surrounded by a generous selection of well-known retailers and designer shops.

But now it's time to head over to Friedrichstraße. The Galleries Lafayette (Friedrichstraße 76, www.lafayette-berlin.de) is the elegant "eastern" counterpart to the KaDeWe and has established itself as one of Berlin's most elegant department stores. Though having only a fraction the size of its western competitor, it shines by offering almost exclusively French products. The Galleries offer everything from designer clothes and perfumes to fresh French produce. There's even an excellent French bookshop in the basement for the real Francophiles out there.

And speaking of elegant, why don't we just move on to exclusive - it's right down the street at the Q205 and the Q206 (Friedrichstraße 68). These "Quartiers" are a collection of numerous exquisite boutiques, shops and art stores. These shops strive to exude a touch of cosmopolitan elegance, and it seems to be working quite well. It's a type of design and lifestyle department store, if you will - par excellence. And needless to say, the fashion, accessories, cosmetics and jewellery they sell here (among countless other items) are very expensive.

Not even the Weihnachtsmann could afford this stuff! But there he is, just like I figured, enjoying a cup of Starbuck's Latte over there next to that forty-foot Christmas tree.