The pleasant summer with temperatures around 25 degrees is over in the capital for the time being. On Wednesday it will be 33 degrees, there is an extreme heat warning from the German Weather Service. This is the highest warning level.

But the peak in terms of temperatures will not be reached until tomorrow. Up to 37 degrees are possible on Thursday before temperatures cool back down to below 30 degrees.

The good news: Berlin is a green city. This is pleasing to the eye and a noticeable advantage in the heat. Plants in forests, parks and roadsides cool the air, unlike concrete, parking lots and stone paving on homes where heat is trapped.

Many a Berlin tourist or resident of an inner-city trendy district hardly thinks further than the borders of the S-Bahn ring. This restriction is literally uncool, especially in times of summer heat and climate change.

In the heat, you sweat much more in the wooded outskirts than in the center, where at least the Tiergarten, a large green area, invites you to linger.

Large cool areas are the Grunewald in the south-west, the Müggelsee in the south-east and the forests of Spandau and Tegel in the north-west.

The Berlin refreshment card with data from the districts and state authorities is a guide to cooling down. The map shows the shadiest, coolest and windiest places in the capital, and locations such as bathing areas, fountains and green areas can also be displayed if required.

The refreshment menu is fully in line with the (weather) trend: with temperatures of around 40 degrees, July 20th was the hottest day of the year in Germany so far. Berlin is threatened with the fifth drought year in a row. At least the extreme weather seems to be over by the end of this week:

Friday is currently 27 degrees and rain forecast, at the weekend and at the start of the week we can expect a pleasant 24 to 26 degrees in Berlin.