Welcome to Berlin
Despite its thousand year history and former status as capital of Europe's richest empire, it's the dark events of 1939-1989 that seem destined to define Berlin, a legacy its citizens are fighting hard to change. Whilst no one wishes to forget, ignoring everything else would be doing a huge disservice to a city proud of its resilience and determination to survive. Today, Berlin is a vibrant melting pot of creativity and inspiration, home once again to the writers, artists and musicians that made the city 'the' place to be in its heyday and, whilst the physical reminders of its past are all around it, the foundations of an exciting future are just as obvious, from the commercial, futuristic hub of Potsdamer Platz to the leafy gentility of Unter den Linden and the restructured Olympic Stadium and Reichstag.
Berlin has one of the highest - and youngest - immigrant populations of Europe and, consequently, one of the most diverse cultures of any capital city. In just a few hours, you can walk from a Turkish market to a Polish synagogue, English pub, Russian coffee house, French department store and traditional German bierkeller proving that, if a city as tortured as Berlin can rise so spectacularly from its own ashes, then anywhere can.
Most popular