Lantern Walks in Berlin: Where and When to Join St. Martin This November
Every year in early November, Berlin's pavements fill with small paper suns, moons and hedgehogs on sticks. Around 16:30 a church bell rings somewhere in your Kiez, a brass band warms up, and a few hundred children walk a slow loop through the dark singing about their lanterns. If you have a child at a Kita, you will probably walk with them. If you do not, you can still join one of the public lantern walks, and they are some of the warmest evenings this city has.
The catch is the dates. St. Martin's Day falls on Wednesday 11 November this year, but most parishes, farms and Kiez groups publish their own date only a few weeks ahead, and the lists online still mix this year with earlier ones. So I went through the organisers' own pages on 22 October and kept only what they actually say.
A St. Martin fire with a ring of lanterns. Many Berlin walks end exactly like this, at a bonfire in a churchyard or on a farm.
Lantern walks in Berlin with a confirmed date this year
These are the public lantern walks in Berlin whose organisers had announced a 2026 date when I checked. None of them asks for a ticket or a booking:
Wednesday 11 November, Mitte: the Berliner Dom has its children's choir play the St. Martin story at 17:00 (doors 16:30), then the lantern walk goes round the Lustgarten.
Wednesday 11 November, Prenzlauer Berg: three walks meet at the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark for a bonfire and a play. The parish has confirmed the date, the start times are still to come.
Wednesday 11 November, Pankow: a walk from the Rathaus-Center on Breite Straße at 18:00, round Bleichröderpark, with free lantern-making in the centre from 14:00.
Wednesday 11 November, Spandau, Marzahn and Adlershof: short services and walks at the Lutherkirche (16:30), Von der Verklärung des Herrn on Neufahrwasserweg (16:00) and the Catholic church on Nipkowstraße (16:30).
Thursday 12 November, Halensee and Buckow: the Hochmeisterkirche at 16:00, with St. Martin on horseback, and the Neu-Buckow church at 16:30, ending at a bonfire in the church garden.
Friday 13 November, Lichtenberg: the biggest Kiez walk on the list, from Freiaplatz at 16:00 to the Hans-Zoschke-Stadion, with two horses, choirs and fire barrels. The organisers expect 1,000 to 1,500 people.
Saturday 14 November, Dahlem: the Domäne Dahlem farm walk, gathering in the courtyard from 16:30, with a short service at 17:00 and food and drinks on the farm afterwards.
My advice: pick the walk by the evening you can manage first and the Kiez second. A Wednesday walk at 16:00 means leaving the Kita early and arriving with a hungry child; the Friday in Lichtenberg and the Saturday in Dahlem are the two that fit a working parent's week without a fight.
Why most walks start between 16:00 and 17:30
There is a simple reason for the times. On 11 November the sun sets in Berlin at 16:19, and it is properly dark by about 16:56. A walk that starts at 16:00 with a short service or a play sets off just as the sky goes blue, and the lanterns glow for real by the time the first song starts.
Later starts like the Pankow walk at 18:00 or the walk after the Dom play are fully dark from the first step, which I like with older children. With a toddler, the 16:00 to 16:30 walks are kinder: you are home before the evening falls apart.
A lantern procession in Cologne. Berlin walks look the same: slow, close together, and led by people in hi-vis vests.
The map: every walk by evening and Kiez
The map below has all ten confirmed walks plus thirteen that ran in recent years and have not posted a 2026 date yet. Switch evenings on and off, tap a lantern for the meeting point and the nearest station, and look at the strip at the bottom to see each start time against sunset.
The walks that will probably run again
Some of Berlin's best-known lantern walks had not posted a date when I checked. Each of these ran in 2024 or 2025, and the pale rings on the map show where they started:
Kreuzberg: the walk with bagpipes from the Admiralbrücke to the Christuskirche on the Zickenplatz (16:00 in 2025), and St. Bonifatius on Yorckstraße with a horse and a bonfire in the courtyard.
Steglitz: the Alt-Steglitzer Martinsfest at the Matthäuskirche on Schloßstraße, with St. Martin on horseback, and the Patmos church on Gritznerstraße.
Tempelhof: the ufaFabrik children's farm on Viktoriastraße, which started at 17:17 in 2024, with a fire show and Stockbrot.
Lübars: the walk from the village church through the Tegeler Fließ with horse and rider, and the lantern festival at the Alte Fasanerie.
Friedrichshain: a Saturday walk from Rudolfplatz to the RAW site, with lantern-making beforehand at the Zwingli-Kirche.
Schöneberg, Mariendorf, Charlottenburg and Spandau: St. Matthias on Winterfeldtplatz, Maria Frieden on Kaiserstraße, the Luisenkirche on Gierkeplatz and the Gnadenkirche on Jaczostraße.
I would not plan a whole evening around one of these until its own page shows the date. Older lists still send people to routes that changed years ago: the Dom walk now stays in the Lustgarten, and the Kreuzberg walk starts at the Admiralbrücke.
A lantern procession cast in bronze on the door of St. Martin's church in Stotzheim. The custom is old enough to be in the church furniture.
What happens at a Laternenumzug
If you did not grow up with it, the shape of the evening helps. Most Berlin walks follow the same order:
A short start: a service, a story or a little play, usually about the Roman soldier Martin who cut his cloak in half for a freezing beggar.
The walk itself: about half an hour to an hour at toddler speed, often behind St. Martin on a horse, with a brass band or a guitar and the same three or four songs. "Ich geh mit meiner Laterne" is the one you will hear twenty times.
The end: a Martinsfeuer (bonfire), warm punch for the children, and often Martinshörnchen, croissant-shaped sweet rolls that you break and share, the way Martin shared his cloak.
A few things I have learned the hard way. Most children now carry battery lantern sticks instead of candles, and a spare battery is worth more than a nice lantern. The bonfire area gets crowded, so agree on a meeting spot with your group before the walk starts. And bring a cup for the punch, because the paper cups run out.
A St. Martin fire at a primary school in Cologne in 2024. Expect a crowd like this at the big Berlin walks in Lichtenberg and Prenzlauer Berg.
How to find the walk in your own Kiez
The ten walks above are the ones with a public announcement. The truth is that most lantern walks in Berlin are smaller: a Kita, a primary school, a parish or a Familienzentrum walking two blocks around its own street. Those are often the nicest, and they almost never appear on a city list.
Ask at the Kita or school door. Some open their walk to siblings and neighbours, and the notice tends to go up a couple of weeks before.
Look at your nearest church's noticeboard, the glass case by the door. Protestant and Catholic parishes both run walks, and they do not care which one you belong to.
Check the district news. The Lichtenberg walk was announced in the Berliner Abendblatt, not on an event site.
Make your own lantern. The Neu-Buckow parish runs free lantern-making afternoons on 3 and 5 November (register by email), and the Rathaus-Center Pankow has free crafting on the day.
If your days are already full of school pick-ups, my post on indoor playgrounds in Berlin covers the wet afternoons around these evenings, and autumn leaves in Berlin has the parks worth walking before it gets dark at half past four. For the rest of the month, Berlin in November lists what else is on.
Martinsgans: St. Martin for the grown-ups
The other half of St. Martin happens at the table. Around 11 November many German restaurants put Martinsgans on the menu: roast goose with red cabbage and dumplings, usually for two or four people and often only with a reservation. The story goes that Martin hid in a goose pen to avoid being made a bishop, and the geese gave him away.
Martinsgans with red cabbage and dumplings. If you want it on the weekend after the lantern walks, book now.
My advice: if you want goose, book a table for the weekend of 14 and 15 November this week, because the good tables go early. A lantern walk on Saturday afternoon in Dahlem and a goose dinner after it is my favourite way to do the whole thing in one go.
My move for St. Martin this year
I keep it simple. I put the one walk that fits my week in the calendar now, check its page again the week before, and pack a spare battery, a cup and a warm hat. If your Kita announces its own walk later, that one wins: walking with the children you know is the best version of this evening.
Before you go, open the organiser's page from the map once more, because times can still move. And for what is worth doing in Berlin each weekend, from lantern walks to the first Christmas markets, my weekly newsletter is where I put my short list.
Image credits
Source and licence details for the 4 photographs used in this article.
Lanterns around the St. Martin fire in Köln-Neuehrenfeld: Superbass, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A St. Martin lantern procession in Cologne: Superbass, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The St. Martin fire at a primary school in Köln-Neuehrenfeld, 2024: Superbass, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Lantern procession relief on the bronze door of St. Martin in Stotzheim: Thomas Hummel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.