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A city on the cutting-edge, Berlin has often been in the spotlight on the world
stage over the past 100 years. This is a city where constant change is a given.
Sure, the Wall isn't there any more, but Berlin is still very much divided: in
the centre of the city, there's a pretty neat segue from the wealthy glitz of
the west to newly developed central east Berlin. This area was quickly colonised
by the trendy café-bar set in the early 1990s and swift rebuilding has erased
nearly all trace of the wall. It's the suburbs of East Berlin with their grey
and decaying apartment blocks, cardboard cars and paucity of telephones that make
it apparent that the Wall was up to protect a utilitarian East from a decadent
West.
Before it came down, the Wall was the most enduring icon of a
nation's disharmony. But it's not as if the city hadn't seen it all before. From
the civic turmoil of the Thirty Years War, to the devastating impact of the fire-bombing
during WWII, Berlin has constantly been under siege or in a post-siege rebuilding
phase. Even in the middle of trouble and strife, though, Berliners have continued
to live it up. This is the city where cabaret and techno were born. There's an
edgy out-there quality to the nightlife - think Sally Bowles and her divine decadence
through to the contemporary cool of Blixa Bargeld and Nick Cave's tortured noise
poetry - that is both intimidating and exciting. Whichever way you spell it, Berlin
means groove.
ATTRACTIONS
Brandenburg Gate
One of Berlin's most photographed sites,
the Brandenburg Gate was once the boundary between East and West Berlin. The Wall
came down in 1989 and the gate became the very epitome of German reunification
Checkpoint Charlie Museum
Checkpoint Charlie,
the pre-fabricated monitoring tower that the Allies hoisted into position after
the erection of the Berlin Wall, was a potent symbol of the Cold War.
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche
This church is one of
Berlin's most famous historic landmarks. It was bombed by the British in late
1943 in a fierce raid that left only the broken west tower standing.
Kulturforum
For more art and culture than you can poke a
stick at, head to Kulturforum. |
