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Berlin

Berlin's combo of glamour and grit is bound to mesmerise all those keen to explore its vibrant culture, cutting-edge architecture, fabulous food, intense parties and tangible history.

High on History

Bismarck and Marx, Einstein and Hitler, JFK and Bowie, they’ve all shaped – and been shaped by – Berlin, whose richly textured history confronts you at every turn. This is a city that staged a revolution, was headquartered by Nazis, bombed to bits, divided in two and finally reunited – and that was just in the 20th century! Walk along remnants of the Berlin Wall, marvel at the splendour of a Prussian palace, visit Checkpoint Charlie or stand in the very room where the Holocaust was planned. Berlin is like an endlessly fascinating 3D textbook where the past is very much present wherever you go.

Party Paradise

Forget about New York – Berlin is the city that truly never sleeps. Sometimes it seems as though Berliners are the lotus-eaters of Germany, people who love nothing more than a good time. The city's vast party spectrum caters for every taste, budget and age group. From tiny basement clubs to industrial techno temples, chestnut-canopied beer gardens to fancy cocktail caverns, saucy cabarets to ear-pleasing symphonies – Berlin delivers hot-stepping odysseys, and not just after dark and on weekends but pretty much 24/7. Pack your stamina!

Cultural Trendsetter

When it comes to creativity, the sky’s the limit in Berlin, which is one of Europe's big start-up capitals. In the last 20 years, the city has become a giant lab of cultural experimentation thanks to a spirit that nurtures and encourages new ideas as well as to once abundant space and cheap rent. Although the last two of these are definitely a thing of the past. Top international performers still grace Berlin's theatre, concert and opera stages; international art-world stars like Olafur Eliasson and Jonathan Meese make their home here; and Clooney and Hanks shoot blockbusters in the German capital. Highbrow, lowbrow and everything in between – there’s plenty of room for the full gamut of cultural expression.

Laid-back Lifestyle

Berlin is a big multicultural metropolis but deep down it maintains the unpretentious charm of an international village. Locals and expats follow the credo 'live and let live' and put greater emphasis on personal freedom and a creative lifestyle than on material wealth and status symbols. Cafes are jammed at all hours, drinking is a religious rite and clubs keep going through the weekend into Monday. Size-wise, Berlin is pretty big but its key areas are wonderfully compact and easily navigated on foot, by bike or with public transport.

Must see in
Berlin

  • Brandenburger Tor

    Prussian kings, Napoleon and Hitler have marched through this neoclassical royal city gate that was once trapped east of the Berlin Wall. Since 1989 it has gone from a symbol of division and oppression to the symbol of a united Germany. The landmark, which overlooks the stately Pariser Platz with its embassies and banks, is at its most atmospheric – and photogenic – at night when light bathes its stately columns and proud Goddess of Victory sculpture in a mesmerising golden glow.

  • Reichstag

    This famous Berlin landmark has been set on fire, bombed, left to crumble, and wrapped in fabric before emerging as the home of the German parliament (the Bundestag) and focal point of the reunited country's government quarter. A free lift whisks visitors to the rooftop for lovely views of the Brandenburg Gate, Tiergarten park and other landmarks as well as a chance to saunter up the spiralling ramp of the glass dome, the building's dazzling beacon designed by British architect Norman Foster.

  • The Berlin Wall

    Few events in history have the power to move the entire world. The Kennedy assassination. The moon landing. The events of 9/11. And, of course, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. If you were old enough back then, you may remember the crowds of euphoric revellers cheering and dancing at the Brandenburg Gate. Although little is left of the physical barrier, its legacy lives on in the imagination, and in such places as Checkpoint Charlie, the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer and the East Side Gallery.

  • Museumsinsel

    Berlin's 'Louvre on the Spree', this imposing ensemble of five treasure houses is the undisputed highlight of the city's museum landscape. Declared a Unesco World Heritage Site, Museum Island represents 6000 years of art and cultural history, from the Stone Age to the 19th century. Feast your eyes on majestic antiquities at the Pergamonmuseum and Altes Museum, report for an audience with Egyptian queen Nefertiti at the Neues Museum, take in 19th-century art at the Alte Nationalgalerie and marvel at medieval sculptures at the Bode-Museum.

  • Potsdamer Platz

    No other area around town better reflects the 'New Berlin' than this quarter forged from the death-strip that separated East and West Berlin for 28 years. The world's biggest construction site through much of the 1990s, Potsdamer Platz 2.0 is a postmodern take on the historic area that until WWII was Berlin's equivalent of Times Square. A cluster of plazas, offices, museums, cinemas, theatres, hotels and flats, it shows off the talents of seminal architects of our times, including Helmut Jahn and Renzo Piano.

  • Holocaust Memorial

    Listen to the sound of your footsteps and feel the presence of uncounted souls as you make your way through the massive warped labyrinth that is Germany's central memorial to the Jewish victims of the Nazi-orchestrated genocide. New York architect Peter Eisenman poignantly captures this unspeakable horror with a maze of 2711 tomblike concrete plinths of varying heights that rise from an unsettlingly wavy ground. The memorial's abstract narrative contrasts with the graphic and emotional exhibits in the subterranean information centre.

  • Schloss Charlottenburg

    We can pretty much guarantee that your camera will have a love affair with Berlin's largest and loveliest remaining royal palace. A late-baroque jewel inspired by Versailles, it backs up against an idyllic park, complete with carp pond, rhododendron-lined paths, two smaller palaces and a mausoleum. The palace itself is clad in a subtle yellow favoured by the royal Hohenzollern family and adorned with slender columns and geometrically arranged windows. A copper-domed tower overlooks the forecourt and the equestrian statue of the Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm.

  • Kulturforum

    Conceived in the 1950s, the Kulturforum was West Berlin's answer to Museumsinsel and is a similarly enthralling cluster of cultural venues, albeit in modern buildings. One of the city's most important art museums, the Gemäldegalerie, wows fans with Old Masters from Rembrandt to Vermeer. Other museums zero in on prints and drawings, arts and crafts, and musical instruments. Next door, the Berliner Philharmoniker, one of the world's finest orchestras, has its home base in a honey-coloured free-form concert hall designed by Hans Scharoun.

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