Twenty years ago, the city that is now capital of a united Germany was divided by the Wall. One side-effect of this inhumane barrier was to insulate East Berlin from the rapid commercialisation of the west and bestow it with a unique character. But since it came in from the cold, the city has become a cultural powerhouse, and a great place to visit.
Berlin's heart is now firmly in the east, the part of the city Stalin claimed for the USSR. The centre is defined by its great monuments: the Brandenburg Gate to the west, the last survivor of the 18th-century city gates, and nearby the Reichstag, the beautifully revived parliament building. To the east, the mighty Berliner Dom (cathedral) is dwarfed by the Television Tower - known as the "Pope's Revenge", because whenever the sun shines on the globe near the top of the tower, a perfect cross is formed.
North of here, the Prenzlauer Berg district is fun and bohemian, while further east, the area of Friedrichshain reveals unreconstructed parts of the city.
The city's main tourist offices are at Hauptbahnhof (Europaplatz entrance, open daily 8am-10pm) and Brandenburg Gate (open daily 10am-6pm).
To get a sense of life in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, stay at the Ostel, part of a dreary apartment block at Wriezener Karree, revived as a retro-hostel. The place is full of DDR memorabilia and is close to the Ostbahnhof station. If you prefer to be at the heart of things, the new NH Berlin at Friedrichstrasse has a superb location and stylish interior.
Take a hike
Start at the Brandenburg Gate, formerly tucked into a forbidden zone just inside the Berlin Wall - or "Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier", as the East German government described it. It has now regained its proper role as grand entrance to the city, full of tourists and street entertainers impersonating occupying troops. Unter den Linden, the city's broad boulevard, marches east from here, flanked with fancy stores and coffee bars.
Just past Berlin's main junction - where Unter den Linden crosses Friedrichstrasse - the old Staatsbibliotek (national library) appears on the left. Wander into the courtyard to see the fine Prussian façade.
A little further, past the H-shape of Humboldt University, the Neue Wache was built as a neoclassical watch-house, but has now become Germany's National Memorial. Within it stands a single, sombre sculpture, Käthe Kollwitz's Mother with Dead Son, below which are buried the remains of two unknown casualties of 20th-century conflict: a concentration-camp victim and a soldier.
Berlin's vernacular snack is currywurst, a sausage doused in sauce, served up on a paper plate and designed to be devoured along with a beer. You can fill up at any stand - such as the one beneath the rail bridge at Friedrichstrasse station.
In the popular Prenzlauer Berg, Spielzeugwerkstatt at Choriner Strasse restores, exhibits and sells DDR toys; the friendly owner will take you around his fascinating collection. On Kupfergraben, beside the canal that runs along the west side of Museum Island, a modest fleamarket specialising in DDR artefacts such as badges and hats takes place between about 11am and 4pm on Sundays, with some stalls also there on Saturdays.
The DDR Museum, beside the river on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse, reveals East German life in all its shocking drudgery. You wait 16 years for your first car to arrive and, when it does, it's a fibreglass, two-stroke Trabant with all the acceleration of a dead slug.
(You can see how the other half lived, snooped and holidayed any day between 10am and 8pm 10pm on Saturday).
Bernauer Strasse, north of the centre, was the street that exposed the worst cruelties of the Berlin Wall. The line of division ran right alongside a row of houses that found themselves in the "wrong" half of the city when the first barrier went up in 1961.
Memorial plaques set into the pavement mark where civilians died in their desperate bid to jump to freedom.
A handsome church, St Elizabeth's, was destroyed in the 1980s to create a clear "death strip" that would be easier for the East German guards to control. The Chapel of Reconciliation was created out of the rubble in 2000 as a simple oval structure.
Opposite the chapel, the Wall Documentation Centre features a tower with 89 steps - the same number as the year the wall fell. On the climb up, you follow a time-line of the events that led to the city being torn apart. At the top, you can look down on the meticulous measures taken to prevent East Germans fleeing to the West. Inside, exhibits tell the story of the night the Cold War frontline arose in Berlin.
One element of the magnificence preserved all through the communist era is the Opera Cafe just east of the State Opera House on Unter den Linden. For some capitalist indulgence, try the jazz buffet each Sunday. On other days of the week, settle for breakfast.
Tiergarten has long been the lungs of the city, laced with lakes and speckled with monuments. The most dominant is the Soviet War Memorial - built on Stalin's orders in the western part of the city in 1945, and given priority over the need to rebuild homes.
Reichstag
South-east from here, across Ebertstrasse, is the haunting Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field comprising an uneven grid of concrete slabs that you can, and should, walk through.
The icing on the cake is the Reichstag, which was built 115 years ago, but the German parliament building resumed its role as home for the nation's law-makers a decade ago.
Part of the brief for Sir Norman Foster's design was that the public should be welcomed in freely. Any day, from 8am to midnight, you can visit the glass dome and roof terrace atop this magnificent confection. To avoid queues, come later in the evening (last admission 10pm), when the crowds have dwindled and you can appreciate the dazzling night panorama of this united city. - The Independent