Berlin Overview

Congratulations on your decision to visit Berlin. Your wussy friends went to Paris. Your snob friends left for London. Your tacky friends chose Florence. And your fat friends stayed home. But you chose Berlin, which makes two things true of you: 1. You're smarter than your friends. 2. You're bad at choosing friends. Everything that rocks in the other European capitals does so in Berlin, but here the beat is faster, the groove is harder, and all of it is covered in more mustard than Mr. French could dream. First, Berlin has normal history; the Prussians ruled from Berlin's canal-lined boulevards, built the Berliner Dom, pimped out opera houses, and collected enough art to make the Louvre green with envy.

But Berlin also has more recent history, part of which was the implosion of its older history in WWII, then there whole”wall” thing when the Soviets cut the city in half. In short, “change” more than anything else continues to define Berlin. As a city simultaneously abandoned and dominated by authority, Berlin became a haven of punks and anarchists in the'70s and '80s. When the wall came down, that sharp culture was suddenly forced to have a playdate with legitimacy as East and West reunited and sought to establish common ground.

In 1999, the German government moved from Bonn to Berlin, and suddenly Berlin's graffiti-filled streets were full of briefcase-carrying bureaucrats. Embracing change and pushing forward has also made Berlin the “cool” capital of Europe.

Your friends are morons.

Practical Information

Tourist Offices: Now privately owned, tourist offices provide far fewer free services than they once did. www.berlin.de has quality information on all aspects of the city. EurAidesells rail tickets, maps ...more

Orientation

The River Spree snakes west to east through Berlin, north of the narrower Landwehrkanal that flows into it. The vast Tiergarten, Berlin’s beloved park, lies between the waterways at the city’s center ...more

Neighborhoods

Should you forget that Berlin is an old European capital, venture into West Berlin's Charlottenburg. Originally a separate town founded around the grounds of Friedrich I's palace, it was an affluent cultural ...more

History

Between Wars: Rebellion And Poverty. WWI and the Allied blockade reduced Berlin to poverty. A popular uprising led to Kaiser Wilhelm II’s abdication and Karl Liebknecht’s declaration of a socialist ...more