Berlin, the capital of Germany

Berlin has one of the best local public transport systems of Europe. There are the subway, the busses, the streetcars and the suburban trains. Almost every destination in Berlin can be reached by local public transport
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In the early morning hours, when people go to work, the subway comes every 5 minutes. Stations are crowded then, of course...

There are two famous Bus lines: The bus 100and the bus 200 connect the old train station Zoologischer Garten (West of Berlin) with Alexanderplat in the eastern part of Berlin. Often the drivers of those busses play tourist guides.

The Holocaust memorial had been designed by the famous architect Peter Eisenman and was openend in May 2005 to the public as a contribute to the death of all the Jews who were killed under the Nazi regime. There has been much discussion about the design of the memorial and people using the steel blocks as places to sit upon.

In any case it is a place worth visiting.

If you visit Checkpoint Charlie today, it is hard to imagine that once, before the wall came down in 1989, it was the end of Western Berlin. Only the Allied forces were allowed here to pass to Eastern Berlin - people from Western Germany and from Western Berlin had to take other passages.

The Adlon hotel and the Academy of the Arts are situated at the Pariser Platz near the Brandenburg Gate.

The Adlon hotel has a long history, and the actual building is a rebuilt of the hotel burnt down shortly after the war. You might not have the money for an overnight stay there, but maybe you'd like to isit the café there and watch all the important people coming in and going out!

The Academy of the Arts is an institution which rganizes all kinds of cultural events - exhibitions, lectures, public readings. All those events take place in a modern building with wide glass windows. There is also a café inside and a bookshop

The "Weinhaus Huth" is the only old building amidst all the modern buildings of the Potsdamer Platz. It once was a restaurant in the middle of Berlin. At the end of WW II, bombs destroyed every house in the neighbourhood, but spared Weinhaus Huth. Then the Berlin Wall was built, and the Potsdamer Platz became a no-go-area. Today, it is a restaurant once again.

Alexanderplatz is one of the busiest places in Berlin. People change from one means of public transport to another one in order to get home or to get to work.

But there are breathing spaces" only one step from the crowd, where you can sit and watch the fountains rising and falling, in front of a very old church ilt in the 13th century.

The Gendarmenmarkt is in the district of Mitte, and it's one of my favourite places. In the summer, when the cafés around the place are offering chairs and tables outside you could think that you are in some southern town of Italy, and not in the north east of Germany.

Deutscher Dom, Berlin by ullahennig
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Kreuzberg / Friedrichshain is one district in Berlin where you can still see a lot of buildings from the 19th century. The buildings around the Chamissoplatz were reconstructed in the 1980's. Today many students and academics live there. Once a weekthere's a market on the Chamissoplatz, with fruits and vegetables from farmers living in Berlin-Brandenburg.

The Martin-Gropius-Bau is one of the famous exhibition halls of Berlin. It was built between 1877 and 1881. The building of the wall in 1961 made it stand close to the East district. Everyone who went to the exhibition hall was confronted with the wall and the division of Berlin.

The Martin-Gropius-Bau can be reached very easily by U-Bahn (U 6; depart at Kochstraße).