On Kastanienallee — the Prenzlauer Berg street that the neighbourhood uses rather than displays — a café that occupies the ground floor of a pre-war apartment block, its windows facing north onto the chestnut trees the street is named for. The interior is quiet in the way of the neighbourhood: second-hand furniture, good filter coffee, a rotating selection of local bakery pastries on a wooden board. The clientele on weekday mornings is a reliable census of the district — freelancers, parents with prams, people who have lived here long enough that the coffee order doesn't require conversation. Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg has a particular quality of morning light that comes through the large sash windows between nine and eleven, when the chestnut canopy is full and the street is still on the quieter side of its day. The café holds this light well.
Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, Germany