Berlin is an ever-changing destination with a powerful history that has left an indelible print on the city and people who live there. It makes the ideal place to visit for a short weekend break as Martin Bewick recounts.
Starting the Berlin weekend in style the sun is twinkling on Berlin’s main river, the Spree, and sparkling on the modern glass dome that crowns Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag. It’s late morning and I am drinking cappuccino at a waterside cafe. Tourists are ambling past on their way to the city’s many museums and, at the table next to me, a family of well-dressed Berliners has ordered a round of Pilsner on what will be a long, lazy Sunday. This was to be the start of my Berlin weekend getaway.
What a difference eight years makes. The last time I was here for a short break in 2000, it was during one of the coldest Berlin winters in memory (and that was according to locals supposedly acclimatised to the chill of an East European January). There were not many tourists then – no open-topped sightseeing boats on the Spree or horse-drawn tours round the city’s sprawling main park, the Tiergarten. That winter, everything was under snow, Berlin felt bleak and much of the city looked like a building site. Things had changed since my last short trip..
They had pulled down the Berlin Wall which, since 1961, had divided British, French and American West Berlin from the Communist-governed East, but many of the elegant modern buildings that now typify the capital city’s cultural quarters were not yet built. Eight years ago the remains of the Wall looked just like the rubble you would find on any old stretch of waste-ground. Today, however, fragments of the Wall, covered with graffiti of peace signs, are tourist attractions in themselves – re-erected like totem poles as a counterpoint to the city’s dazzling new architecture
Berlin is a vibrant cultural centre and, at under two hours from most British airports, an ideal destination for a weekend break – though there really is too much to see to pack into a couple of days and it is advised to plan your short break to Berlin in advance. Get a sense of what modern-day Berlin is all about and focus your sightseeing attentions on the central district of Mitte.
Once a part of East Berlin, Mitte and its environs are home to the Reichstag, the famous Brandenburg Gate, a host of art galleries, museums, restaurants and bars – all watched over by the skyline’s most famous landmark, the Fernsehturm TV tower in Alexanderplatz, which looks like a huge golf ball skewered by a very large toothpick. Many sights around Mitte are within striking distance of each other, which means you might not need to contend with public transport at all.
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