Why aren't we there NOW?
Vibrant, cool, arty, forever young. What are we doing with our lives that we are not in Berlin?
1. ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THAT VERY DARK EPISODE FROM THE PAST
The way in which Germany has treated its relationship with Nazism is especially admirable considering how little such an attitude is lavished on (we better not look to our own history). Having lost the war forced the country to carry out a process of analysis and purge to atone for collective guilt. From the oppression of the highly visible and sober Holocaust memorial to the plaques on the facades of buildings discreetly marking anti-Semitic crime scenes, the city doesn't forget.
two. OVERFLOW HISTORY
How little Prussia managed to become one of the most thriving (ahem, sometimes too thriving) states in the world is one of those compelling stories that one never tires of studying. Frederick the Great on horseback, helmet Otto von Bismarck, Rosa Luxemburg murdered, the art scene of the Weimar Republic, the Reichstag burning, Jesse Owens on the running track, Nazi banknotes that had lost all value being used as fuel for heating, espionage during the cold war, the fall of the wall...
3. BUT DON'T OBCEDE WITH HER
The bunker where Hitler died (or not) today it is a completely uninteresting car park between government buildings . The city is not afraid to build itself over and over again thinking about the future much more than in the past, reborn as many times as necessary and making a clean slate. He has experience with it.
Four. FOLLOW THE PATH OF THE WALL DOING PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY
More than the great stretch of the East Side Gallery still standing , where people photograph themselves in front of the murals that ask for peace in the world, the most shocking part of the wall is precisely the one that cannot be seen. The one that passed in front of the Brandenburg Gate or divided what are now wide avenues full of life. Walking freely through the city today, it is impossible not to wonder how it is possible that a wall was built in it. The images of the citizens uploaded to the wall in 1989 are still one of the expressions of genuine joy and to transmit that strongest live story vibe we've ever seen.
The Berlin Wall passed through here #Mauerfall #Lichtgrenze
5. THE OPEN SPACES
And when the wall fell, the city was filled with holes that have not yet been completely filled. Amplitude is what you breathe in the city, full of parks, gardens or, less aesthetic, solar abandoned that produce a sensation of a half-built city but that, after all, also give air, that precious commodity in our contemporary mousetraps.
6. THE ARCHITECTURE
Salad of architectural styles, the dome of the Reichstag designed by Norman Foster It could be one of its contemporary icons, but the city invites you to discover the superimposition of eras in a mess that is as messy as it is seductive at every corner. Baroque and Bauhaus go hand in hand, historicism and fascist architecture share spaces, you walk around with a watchful eye and receive a lesson in the art –sometimes involuntary- of superimposition.
Reichstag dome, Berlin (Germany)
7. TEMPELHOF
This airport in the middle of the city is many things at once: an example of typical grandiose fascist architecture, the protagonist of the airlift that supplied the city in 1948, preventing it from being isolated "in the communist sea" and paradigm of the reconversion of public spaces by converting its already empty runways and useless for flights in a gigantic public park.
It is also emblematic of the fight against gentrification: in a recent referendum, Berliners v massively voted against the council's project to build houses and offices in the green areas surrounding the slopes. There is room for everything: urban gardens in flowerbeds, concerts, sports activities or simply space to walk alone among the dry or frozen grasses (depending on the time of year) losing for a moment the awareness that you are in the heart of Europe.
8. NIGHT LIFE
Big words. Going out in Berlin is one of those things that you know how it starts but not how it ends . From a quick burger under the train tracks to an impromptu rave in a converted industrial space , from a quiet beer in a bar that could be your grandmother's living room to singing traditional Greek songs in a Swiss restaurant, the coolness and urban energy infect the laziest ass.
The old bus station converted into a FIESTA
9. THE CURRYWURST
The city's emblematic fast food and sticky example of the multiculturalism of today's German society. It's Turkey, it's Germany, it's sauce staining your fingers and filling your stomach. When you take one, you don't just eat a sausage, you eat a mix of good stuff.
10. THE TRADITIONAL FOOD VINDICATED
Tree-shaded breweries, hearty knuckles and beef liver compete with the ubiquitous brunch and new gastronomic trends . And of course, it also has its café culture, full of soft and warm places to feel like in the times of the Weimar republic, but with Wi-Fi.
curried forcefulness
eleven. THE ISLAND OF MUSEUMS
Hello, Nefertiti. Hello, Pergamon altar. Hello Ishtar gate . The new museum, the old one, the cathedral, keep the samples of the colonialist past of the German empire and its passage through cultures that had known better times that they sold (or were taken away from them) its treasures in times when the concept of heritage was in its infancy.
12. THE KULTURFORUM
It is one of those grandiose cultural projects that are set as an example in European social science faculties and attempts are made to extrapolate it to other cities with uneven success. It's also the twin project of the other Germany to the museum island of Mitte, this time wrapped in contemporary architecture. La Philarmonie or the New National Gallery by Mies Van der Rohe they hide treasures for the culture-hungry visitor and Berliner.
Gate of the South Agora of Miletus, in the Pergamon Museum
13. KREUZBERG, FRIEDRICHSHAIN AND NEULÖLLN
They are the names of those neighborhoods that fall within the circle of modern neighborhoods in the world, along with Williamsburg, Palermo, Malasaña or entire Portland . And, although the word hipster has ended up becoming a cliché of everything bad, These neighborhoods in Berlin are simply cool.
14. THE UNDERGROUND
The gentrification (oh, what would become of us without that word) and the gentrification of society is evident (Haus Schwarzenberg is much more a tourist attraction than anything else), but although the glory days of the great squatters and the movement bustling underground art may have passed, the scene is still there, with a life of counterculture and rollaco that brings out the amazed redneck in all of us.
Kreuzberg District
fifteen. THE FEELING OF FREEDOM
It seems unbelievable, but you can still smoke in bars (how quickly we had forgotten what it was), and this is not a reason for conflict and raising eyebrows, but rather tolerance. And there are no closing times. And the people are respectful and there are no messes. How difficult and how easy it is to make you feel that you are enjoying the best of Europe.
16. BEER
Sermesa sermesa I want to drink sermesa. Well, if there is a suitable place to do it, this is it. Take note in this guide of the best places to enjoy it.
The most authentic German beer
17. PRICES
Berlin is one of the few great European capitals in which to live is not to ruin each day a little. The rents, despite the escalation of prices, continue to be affordable and to be seen within their own country as a kind of economic hindrance in the face of the thriving Frankfurt or Munich (which are the ones that really work in the eyes of its inhabitants) favors that it has all the good things of a big city without so much of the bad.
18. THE RIVER AND THE LAKES
The good weather in Berlin makes its inhabitants explode, who take advantage of every minute of sunshine by lying naked (nudism, one of the German contributions to the world) on the banks of the river or making a pilgrimage to Wannsee to get a shot of nature next to its lake, the traditional weekend getaway for city dwellers.
Wannsee: sun loungers, beach bars, sand and live.
19. THE STREET MARKETS
Each neighborhood has its own, they go from the best Teutonic Christmas market tradition that lasts two months to those in areas with a majority of immigrants in which it sometimes seems that you are in Istanbul. The Markthalle Neun in Kreuzberg is a sure bet for street foodies and, of course, the city also has its own scene of food trucks waiting to be discovered.
twenty. THERE'S ALWAYS SOME NEW PLACE TO GO
Yes, they keep opening new shopping malls (the Mall of Berlin) with different cultural alibis , but open-air spaces such as the Park am Gleisdreieck are also opening, on the outskirts of the once rather bland Potsdamer Platz , and major cultural projects are underway, such as the renovation of the Berliner Stadtschloss. Always changing, always seductive, you have to return to Berlin again and again.
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The market of enjoyment in Berlin