“Ich bin ein Berliner.”

John. F. Kennedy

Berlin, Germany’s capital, dates to the 13th century. It is a city of contrast and controversies too! History remind us of the city’s turbulent at the 20th century include its Holocaust memorial and the Berlin Wall’s graffitied remains. Divided during the Cold War , it’s 18th century Brandenburg Gate has become a symbol of reunification. The city’s known for its art scene and modern landmarks like gold coloured, swoop -roofed Berliner Philharmonie, built in 1963.

So, today I am here to take you to such a city that has a history as well the essence of typical European culture and civilisation.

A brief history- Before going to explore of any place we must have a through knowledge about that place and it’s important to know that place with a clear and transparent manner.

The history of Berlin starts with its foundation in the 13th century. It became the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1417, the later of Brandenburg -Prussia , the kingdom of Prussia. Prussia grew about rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries and formed the basis of the German Empire in 1871. The Empire would survive until 1918 when it was defeated in World War.

After 1900 Berlin became a major world city, known for it’s leadership roles in science, the humanities, music , museums, higher education, government, diplomacy and military affairs. It also had a role in manufacturing and finance .

During World WarII bombing , artillery and ferocious street by street fighting destroyed large parts of Berlin. And for over four decades it encapsulated the Cold War confrontation between West and East . With the reunification of Germany in 1990, Berlin was restored as the capital and as a major world city .

This restoration and renovation are still now going on when we had visited Berlin in the year 2019. It was a continuous journey for us, starting from the Iceland to Prague, meanwhile coming to this historical city direct from the United Kingdom.

To explore the city one may have taken several conducted tours or may ride the Hop on Hop of Bus services, by which one may cover the city’s most important tourist places as well as the whole city with a good foundation of knowledge and experience.

  • The Brandenburg Gate – Its is an 18th century neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Fredrick William II after restoring the Orangist power by suppressing the Dutch popular unrest . It is one the best known landmarks of Germany which was built on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel, which used to be the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg.
  • Throughout its existence, the Brandenburg Gate was often a site for major historical events and is today considered not only as a symbol of the tumultuous histories of Germany and Europe, but also of European unity and peace.
  • The museum Island – It is a museum complex on the northern part of the Spree Island in the historic heart of Berlin.It is one of the most visited sights of Germany’s capital and one of the most important museum site in Europe.Built from 1830 to 1930 by the order of the Prussian Kings by the plans of five architects, Museum Island was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1999 because of its testimony to the architectural and cultural development of museums in the 18th and 20th Century. It consists of ,
  • The Altes Museum
  • The Neues Museum
  • The Alte Nationalgalerie
  • The Bode museum
  • The Pergamon museum.

As Museum island includes all of Spree Island north of the Unter den Linden , the Berliner Dome is also located here , near the Lustgarten . To the south, the reconstructed Berlin Palace houses the Humboldt Forum museum and opened in 2020. In 2019, the we visited here , a new visitor centre and art gallery , The James Simon Gallery was opened.

As Museum Island is a huge place to explore , the first four museums would take you at least two to three hours just to walk through and you wouldn’t have much time to actually look at anything or learn anything.

There are several public transport options that visitor can choose to in order to reach museum island but the most convenient way to reach there by hop on hop of bus service.

Another important thing is , if you collect Berlin Museum pass , you get free admission to more than thirty and museums on three consecutive days .

  • Berlin Cathedral-The Berlin Cathedral ( German:Berliner Dom) , also known as , the Evangelical Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church , is a monumental German Evangelical church and dynastic tomb on the museum island in Central Berlin.Having its origins as a castle chapel for the Berlin Palace , several structures have served to house the church since the 1400s. The present collegiate church was built from 1894 to 1905 by order of German Emperor William ll. according to plans by Julius Raschdorff in Renaissance and Baroque Revival Style . The listed building is the largest Protestant church in Germany and one of the most important dynastic tombs in Europe.
  • The magnificent dome of the Cathedral Church is one of the main landmarks in Berlin cityscape and marks the spot of the impressive basilica housing the city’s most important Protestant church. With its elaborate decorative and ornamental designs , the church interior is especially worth seeing.
  • Ninety three members of the Hohenzollern dynasty, whose Protestant branch once reigned Brandenburg,Prussia and the whole of the German Empire.The Hohenzollern Crypt lies beneath Berlin’s Cathedral.

Now, the most important historical aspect of the world history which shocked us even today .

  • Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe- The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe , also known as the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust , designed by architect Peter Eisenman and Buro Happold.
  • It consists of a 19000, square meter with 2,711 concrete slabs or “Stelae ” , arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. They are organised in rows , 54 of them going north -south and 87 heading east – west at right angles but set slightly askew. An attached underground “ Palace of Information” holds the names of three million Jewish Holocaust victims , obtained from the Israeli museum Yad Vashem.
  • Building began on 1st April 2003 , and was finished on 15th December 2004, sixty years after the end of World War ll in Europe, and opened to the public two days later .
  • It is located one block south of the Brandenburg Gate , in the Mitte neighbourhood. The cost of construction was approximately €25 million.
  • Auschwitz which was located on a former military base outside Osweiecim, a town in southern Poland situated near Krakow, known as the largest death camps . Actually it was a Nazi Concentration camp situated in German occupied Poland during Second World War.
  • There are other Holocaust Museums at Germany named as The Buchenwald Memorial ( 1958) , and Dachau Concentration Camp and Memorial site (1965) and another one is Sachsenhausen National Memorial ( 1961) .
  • Auschwitz is the most well known concentration camp around the globe and is one of the must visit Holocaust sites across Europe. The former Concentration Camp is now a memorial and museum in honour of those who lost their lives here.
  • The Auschwitz complex differed from the other Nazi killing centres because it included a concentration camp and a labor camp as well as gas chambers and cremation at Birkenau constructed for the mass murder of European Jews.

Another most important place to visit at Berlin is “Berlin Wall”

The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from East Germany territory.Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic on 13th August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls , accompanied by a wide area ( later known as “death strip” that contained anti-vehicle trenches , beds of nails and other defenses.

  • GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the “Anti -Fascist Protection Rampart” . The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the “Wall of Shame”a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall’s restriction on freedom of movement.
  • Along with the separate and much longer Inner German Border , which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, which came to symbolise physically the “Iron Curtain” that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during Cold War .
  • In 1989 , a series of revolution in nearby Eastern Bloc countries in Poland and Hungary in particular caused a chain reaction in East Germany.
  • In particular, the Pan- European picnic in August 1989 set in motion a peaceful development during which the Iron Curtain largely broke , the rulers in the East came under pressure, the Berlin Wall fell and finally the Eastern Block fell apart.
  • After several weeks of civil unrest , the East German government announced on 9th November 1989, that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin.
  • Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed the Wall , joined by the West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks ,the likes of souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall.
  • The Brandenburg Gate , a few meters from the Berlin Wall , was opened on 22nd December, 1989.
  • The demolition of the wall officially began on 13th June 1990 and was completed in 1994.
  • The “fall of Berlin Wall” paved the way for German reunification, which formerly took place on 3rd October 1990.

Another noteworthy place that can be seen from hop on hop of bus trip while visiting the city is the Checkpoint Charlie.

Checkpoint Charlie – It was the best known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War( 1947 – 1991) as named by the Western Allies .

After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the building at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction. It is now located in the Allied Museum in the Dahlem neighbourhood of Berlin.

  • Checkpoint Charlie was the setting for many thrillers and spy novels, from James Bond in Octopussy to the Spy Who Came in From The Cold.
  • The art of the Berlin Wall was a form of rebellion against the repression and division the wall brought to the everyday lives of Berliner. It was a way for artists to express their contempt for the wall and it’s meaning by transforming the drab stone wall into an artistic display of expressions and rebellion.
  • “Bombing Berlin”, the graffiti capital of Europe as said by the then New York Times as because the roots of graffiti culture can be traced back to the West Berlin in the early of 1980’s when the American occupied sector was the reluctant melting pot anarchist punks, Turkish immigrants and West German draft resisters .
  • The Berlin Wall was one of the largest canvas in the world. Much of the artwork was not claimed by artists and remains anonymous.As because the Wall was open to everyone, there were no restrictions on what artists could put on the wall .

Another important place to visit at Berlin is The Lower House of Germany’s Parliament.

  • Reichstag Building- It is a historic building in Berlin which houses the Bundestag , the lower house of Germany’s parliament.
  • It was constructed to house the Imperial Diet ( German:Reichstag) of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Diet until 1933, when it was severely damaged after being set on fire . After World War ll, the building fell into disuse; the parliament of the German Democratic Republic ( the Volkskammer ) met in the Palast der Republik in East Berlin, while the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany ( the Bundestag) met in the Bundeshaus in Bonn.
  • After its completion in 1999,it once again became the meeting place of the German parliament: the contemporary Bundestag.
  • This building is famous because in the 21st Century of the Reichstag became a symbol of Germany’s commitment to renewable energy . The Reichstag iconic dome was designed to bathe the Bundestag Chamber in natural light and a massive solar array on it’s roof further increased the building’s energy independence.
  • The roof terrace and dome of the Reichstag Building can be visited by members of the public, and offer spectacular views of the parliamentary and government district and Berlin’s sights. Admission is free ; advance registration required.
  • The decorative motifs and sculptures made this place worth visiting.
  • “Ich bin ein Berliner” ( German pronounce: I am a Berliner) is a speech by United States President John F. Kennedy given on June 26, 1963, in West Berlin . It is one of the best known speeches of the Cold War .

Cuisine of Berlin:

Cuisine of Berlin describes different aspects of Berlin’s culinary offerings.On the other hand , it means the traditional Berlin cuisine of Berlin households with dishes from the German cuisine. On the other hand , often rustic pub and snack kitchen, which has become increasingly international due to many migration waves since 1945 and 1990.

  • Meat dishes :
  • Liver Berlin style – fried veal liver with onions and apple slices on mashed potatoes.
  • Currywurst
  • Kasseler
  • Roast Goose – Traditional Christmas dinner in many Berlin households.
  • Königsberger Klopse – Meatballs with anchovies and caper sauce.
  • Döner Kebab
  • Buletten

Fish Dishes-

  • Rollmops – pickled herring fillets
  • “Polish carp” – carp in gingerbread sauce
  • Hecht mit Butterkartoffeln

Vegetable dishes and side dishes :

  • Kartoffelpuffer – potato pancake, often found at Christmas markets, sweet with apple sauce and sugar of hearty with salmon and cream horseradish.
  • Asparagus with Hollandaise sauce.
  • Linseneintopf – a type of lentil stew.

So my friends, I hope this has been an enticing journey both for tastebuds and for your eyes. Get ready to fly to Berlin and embed yourself in the aroma of the German Capital.

Last updated on August 14, 2022