Unreal City

Berlin under a carpet of snow has a characteristic beauty and atmosphere.  I remember the first time I ever saw it snowing here.  It was a March evening in 2007, and the snow just arrived without warning, transforming the streets within minutes.  There have been many occasions since, and remembering them leads me to the inevitable contemplation of what exactly it is about Berlin that has drawn me back again and again.

Our first visit to the city was in 2004; it seems unbelievable to me now that we left it so long.  We’d had successful first time visits to Boston and Brussels that year, but it was Berlin that we returned to, although it hadn’t been the most inspiring of trips.  I suppose that, for Cold War kids stuck in the 1980s, Berlin was more of an ‘idea’ than a geographical entity, so we came to it with all sorts of preconceptions.  We had booked a three-night stay in a hotel managed by a friend-of-a-friend in Leipziger Strasse, close to Checkpoint Charlie – ideally placed for some serious sightseeing, but rather soulless and lacking identity.  I remember that on our first night we had the most abominable meal on Unter den Linden, and finding good bars nearby was impossible as there didn’t seem to be any.  The worst aspect though was that while we were here, my dad died.  Not Berlin’s fault I know, and it wasn’t a complete shock as he had been very ill for some time, but it still made us wish we hadn’t made the trip.  I remember that I was standing outside the Einstein cafe on the corner of Friedrichstrasse when I received the news and, whenever I’ve found myself in that part of the city since, at what I’ve come to think of as ‘Einstein Corner’ I’ve inevitably relived that moment.

Later, we decided that Berlin deserved a second chance, so the following year we included a visit as part of an unusual journey which began at my sister and brother-in-law’s house in Mallorca, and ended in Krakow where we spent our wedding anniversary.

This time we had greater success.  We explored the neighbourhoods of Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg, just wandering the streets, checking out interesting-looking bars and cafes and, in the process, becoming enchanted with a city that was grungy and graffitied, cosmopolitan and ‘multi-kulti’.  We knew we had found somewhere special.

But how does one explain Berlin’s appeal?  It’s not a romantically beautiful city in the way that Paris, Venice or Prague are.  There are no pyramids in Berlin, no Grand Canyon, or sightseeing heavyweights of similar calibre.  Yet to me, the wide, often roughly cobbled, tree-lined streets, the shabby little cafes with their flea-market furniture, the little neighbourhood parks and squares, the canal-side walks, the elevated U-Bahn tracks along Schonhauser Allee and Skalitzer Strasse, the trams that snake their way through the eastern suburbs to converge at Alexanderplatz or Hackescher Markt all embody a uniquely ‘Berlin’ kind of beauty.  Of course, the main commercial areas with their international chain stores, are pretty much the same as anywhere else.  But beyond this, the neighbourhoods and backstreets are where the soul of Berlin is to be found – the odd, quirky, and often downright bizarre.  Berlin never fails to turn up surprises.

As for sights, the city abounds in World War II and Cold War monuments.  The Brandenburger Tor, Checkpoint Charlie and the Holocaust Memorial are some obvious examples.   There are excellent museums and a world-famous zoo.  However, for me, the understated eloquence of the Stolpersteine – tragic in their ubiquity – or the Käthe Kollwitz Pietà in the Neue Wache are as powerful and emotive as anything anywhere, as is the ‘empty library’ at Bebelplatz, a monument to the Nazi book-burning which took place there.

After that second visit we returned to Berlin at any and every opportunity.  We scoured the websites of low-cost airlines seeking inexpensive flights, and all of our holiday entitlement was taken up with trips back to the city.  We visited in December for the Weihnachtsmarkts, in summer for the pavement cafes and the evening vibe in the Mauerpark, in March, when we both have our birthdays.  We have seen the city melting in 30 degree temperatures, been in sudden thumping downpours which have sent people fleeing into bars and cafes for shelter, we have taken atmospheric twilight walks through a snow-covered Volkspark Weinberg, and found fallen chestnuts in Kastanienallee. 

Of course, we have seen changes in Berlin since our early visits (any city is after all an organic entity and Berlin seems to be continually reconstructing itself) – the spiteful demolishing of the Palast der Republik, the equally unforgivable closing of the Tacheles, the relentless gentrification, particularly in areas such as Prenzlauer Berg.  The city seemed more umbilically connected to its Cold War past a decade ago, and ‘Ostalgie’ shops such as Mondos Arts in Friedrichshain, which sold DDR memorabilia, were far more ubiquitous than they are now.  I think of the Ostalgie phenomenon as an essential part of the city’s psyche.  It had been the focus of some of the ghastliest events of the twentieth century.  It had, for nearly thirty years, been schizophrenically divided by the Wall.  It had to come to terms with its past and to renegotiate its role in the world.  The process is still ongoing and it would be naïve to say that Berlin is without its problems.  However, for me, it is in the main a city of tolerance, of freedom and diversity, a place where anyone can feel that they have found a home.