Unexpected Berlin

Snapping up a Ryanair offer, we organise a weekend in Berlin for just 55 euros return. We set off on Thursday at 13.45, bound for a city still unknown to us that has, paradoxically, as its main tourist attraction something that no longer exists: the Wall. THE WALL: 1961-1989 A whole generation lived separated by a wall that, at the time of its construction, divided families and friendships, leaving both halves of the city, after the initial disbelief, in despondency and despair. I think it is impossible for us to understand what it felt like, but in the monumental zone of Bernauer Straße a part of the wall (turned into a memorial in 1999) is still there, and one grey morning we stood behind that wall and tried to imagine...

The other two parts of the wall still existing and most visited by tourists are: an 80-metre section near Potsdamer Platz, and a second, the longest, on the bank of the Spree, near the Oberbaumbrücke (the East Side Gallery), which features a series of paintings along the whole wall (for about 1.4 km) executed by artists from all over the world, who came to Berlin in 1990 to celebrate the fall of the Wall. The Wall Museum next to Checkpoint Charlie tells the political history from after the Second World War and the events that led to the construction of the wall, tells of the people who contested its very construction and, once it was built, the vicissitudes of those who tried to escape, the ways in which they did it, and displays the rudimentary tools and machines built for the purpose.

After a walk around Alexanderplatz we reach Museum Island and stop at the Berliner Dom, which we visit and climb the 267 steps that lead to the gallery on the dome, from where we observe the whole city from above. To visit the museums on the island, unless you have booked in advance, you have to queue a lot, and since the weather seems to be getting worse, we decide to take shelter by boarding one of the many boats offering a cruise on the river. Under a leaden and at times rainy sky we sail along the Spree, grazing the facades of the museums, the Dom and the park (Tiergarten). Sliding past us along the riverbanks are many open-air venues with tables and deckchairs, waiting for those more fortunate than us with the weather, who can enjoy the view and a drink or a beer listening to the notes of Latin rhythms coming from the open-air dance hall next door.

Resuming our walk to reach the Brandenburg Gate, we stop, particularly struck by its imposing scale, at the memorial to the Jewish victims of Europe (Holocaust Mahnmal), where in an area the size of a football pitch, over 2700 stelae of different heights and sarcophagus-shaped are placed on rising ground that makes walking through this “labyrinth” gradually narrower and more unsettling. We then strolled through the streets of the various neighbourhoods, from the least touristy to the shopping ones, and enjoyed an aperitivo at the Monkey bar on the 10th-floor terrace of the 25hours Hotel Bikini Berlin, with a view over the Tiergarten right above the gorilla area of Berlin Zoo. Berlin is a city with a heavy past and a living, young present in constant transformation. Berlin is culture in every aspect, it is the desire to renew itself without forgetting what it was.

New and modern buildings rise alongside historic palazzi, while others, keeping their decadent appearance, have adapted to the new way of living. So we find gardens that reveal art galleries and shops inside; inner courtyards that enclose concept stores or small second-hand markets run by people of the most diverse ethnicities. It is lovely to walk through the different neighbourhoods, and not only the central and more touristy areas, both by day and by night, and to enjoy what the city offers. Public transport is more than efficient and from Friday to Sunday the metro and trains run at all hours, even at night. Next time I will not fail to hire a bicycle and ride the endless cycle paths that cross the whole city, and I will certainly fully enjoy the beautiful, immense park and the very interesting museums.