I have been visiting Berlin for over 30 years. Here’s why it’s the most exciting city in Europe, from great art and fascinating museums to an unrivaled music scene

Berlin was a trading post, a military barracks, a center of knowledge, an industrial powerhouse, a hotbed of debauchery, and a control center for the worst atrocious experiment humanity had ever seen. No other city has had so many faces, suffered so many disasters and reinvented itself so often. For most of its existence, it was dismissed as ugly, uncivilized and extreme.

But now the good news: Berlin is simply the most exciting city in Europe. Granted, I’m biased. I have lived or visited there for more than thirty years – first as a young journalist in the communist East, where I observed the fall of the Wall and reunification. If you’re looking for great art, great museums, quirky places to eat and drink, and a great music scene – classical and modern – then the city has few rivals.

Whether you’re traveling for a weekend, a week or longer, Berlin has a lot to offer, but plan carefully as some of the best places are not in the centre.

If you’re lucky with the weather – summers are usually great, winters refreshingly cold – you can see as much as possible on foot or by bike. Get enough sleep beforehand.

On Museum Island you can spend days in one of the five museums.

John first visited Berlin as a young journalist in the communist East, where he witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall (the remains of which are pictured) and its reunification

The New Museum was redesigned by the British architect Sir David Chipperfield and contains classical antiquities. The Alte Nationalgalerie is full of great masters such as Rodin and Renoir. Not to be confused with the Neue Nationalgalerie, which exhibits art banned by the Nazis as degenerate.

But my favorite bizarre cultural place is a new, small gallery in a former gas station in the Schöneberg district. It is called “Little Grosz” and is dedicated to the artist George Grosz, who specialized in decadent caricatures from the famous Weimar period of the 1920s.

The most famous landmark in Berlin is of course the Brandenburg Gate. Shortly after its construction in the late 18th century, it became a symbol of humiliation when Napoleon and his soldiers marched through the columns and looted most of the city’s art, including the bronze Quadriga that stood at the top. has.

Upstairs is the Kleine Grosz Museum, dedicated to artist George Grosz, who specialized in decadent caricatures from the famous Weimar era of the 1920s.

John recommends spending an afternoon in Central Park, Tiergarten (above).

Lively: “Berlin is all about fun,” writes John. On the top floor is the sun terrace of the Club der Visionäre, one of the bars in the Kreuzberg district

The Spandau Citadel, pictured, “displays an astonishing display of battered and bruised statues from centuries past, including Lenin lying to one side.”

Back then it was a place of unification, of Nazi marches, of division (when the Wall was built it was in no man’s land) and today of the new age. On one side is the Reichstag, the parliament with its glass dome built by Sir Norman Foster. On the other side is the main boulevard Unter den Linden, named after the linden trees. One side of the street is dominated by the ominous Russian embassy. Berlin is haunted by its dark history and yet many buildings look as if they have no history due to wartime bombing. This is why memorials are so important. You often have to brace yourself for what you see, but two of them are particularly poignant.

Housed on the site of the former SS headquarters, The Topography Of Terror uses photographs and documents to illustrate the horrors of Nazi tyranny.

The communist dictatorship is also remembered in many places, not least in the Stasi Museum. This refers to the East German secret police, who monitored the entire population with high-tech devices (for their time), and millions of informants who reported everything their neighbors or colleagues did or said. All the different hidden cameras and listening devices are explained in detail.

But let’s move on, because Berlin is all about fun: hanging out in cafes, brunching at the weekend, dancing in the clubs, spending an afternoon in the zoo or swimming in the lakes on the outskirts of the city. on the outskirts of town (avoid those targeting naked swimmers – it’s not a pretty sight).

A good way to get to know the city is to focus on individual districts. Each of its neighborhoods (the term comes from the original Slavic inhabitants) has its own identity and strong local pride, and many have beautiful central squares. My favorite is Savignyplatz, where Western journalists had their offices during the Cold War and frequented the many local bars; and Chamissoplatz, a jumble of cobbled streets in the quieter part of the Kreuzberg district where television crews seem to be constantly filming costume dramas.

This square is close to Berlin’s most eccentric meeting place (and that’s saying something): Tempelhof. This vast area of ​​empty, flat land dates back to the time of the Knights Templar and the founding of Berlin 800 years ago.

It was in turn a parade ground for Imperial soldiers, a stage for Nazi rallies and the airstrip used by Americans to save West Berlin when it was blockaded by the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. Since reunification, local residents have blocked plans to redevelop it, so for years it has been a place where people come to cycle, skate and picnic.

It is said, though I did not see it, that a man walked there with his lonely sheep. If true, it speaks volumes about one of the most diverse, complicated and fascinating cities in the world.