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Berlin
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About Berlin
After a fifty-year lull, Berlin is back as the
capital of a reunified Germany and back as one of Europe‘s
greatest cities. After World War II, Berlin was a crippled
pawn, sandwiched between East and West, with a literal and
metaphoric wall deeply dividing the two halves. The
northeastern German city even suffered the ignominy of
losing its capital status, as the West German government
fled to Bonn. Today, the Cold War and the iconic events of
November 1989, which saw the Berlin Wall torn to pieces by
those whom it had oppressed for so long, are starting to
seem like a distant memory and all the talk in Berlin is
of the future.
In the biggest construction project in Europe since World
War Two, a new Berlin has emerged from the forest of
cranes dotting the no-man‘s land that was the divided
city‘s dead heart. Potsdamer Platz is the most voluminous
project but the most symbolic recent construction is at
the Reichstag. British architect Lord Foster has rejuvenated
the German parliament with an impressive glass dome that
symbolises the new transparency in German politics, that
of a nation with nothing to hide, which is attempting to
distance itself from the ghosts of its past.
Coupled with this wave of new construction is a city laden
with historical charm, from the old streets of East Berlin,
which are slowly being restored after remaining unchanged
for£50 years, through to the grand architecture of
Museumsinsel and Unter den Linden, and the green lung of
the Tiergarten Park. Tourism is on the rise, as visitors
come to savour the intoxicating mix of old and new. Big
business, too, is booming, as government bodies flock back
from Bonn and relocate in the capital, along with
investment from many other parts of the country and from
all over Europe. Key industries such as electronics,
manufacturing and information technology reflect the hopes
for a brighter future for Berlin.
Contrary to the usual clichés about Germany, Berlin is a
city with a laid-back attitude and some of the liveliest
nightlife in Europe. In Berlin today, there is everything
from authentic beer halls and old Soviet era haunts right
through to buzzing style bars and Latino nightclubs.
Berlin‘s climate is equally eclectic, with hot summer days
giving way to occasionally freezing temperatures during
the long grey winter.
Today‘s quintessential Berlin experience is to laze through
a summer day in the Tiergarten with the rabble of
construction just out of earshot, sipping on a chilled
Pilsner beer, while witnessing a city reinventing itself
as one of Europe‘s finest capitals
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