The more I visit Berlin, the more I see and the more I realise how little I've seen. Such is the draw of any large, vibrant city, constantly bidding you to return.
But with Berlin, there is also the excitement of seeing real change in a short space of time. Even since my first visit three and a half years ago, a lot has changed. Potsdamer Platz, until recently a waste ground in no-mans land, is now full of architecturally impressive skyscrapers and entertainment complexes, sprinkled with cafes and bars along pedestrian throughfares.
To the north of the Brandenburg Gate, currently hidden behind scaffolding, is another complex of new buildings housing various government departments and the Chancellary on what was also formerly waste ground between the Reichstag and the Spree River.
The availability of such vast tracts of empty space in the middle of a major city is a legacy of bomb damage in World War II and, more recently, the partitioning of Berlin by the infamous wall, 'die Mauer'. One small stretch of this wall a short U-Bahn ride north has been preserved complete with no-mans land and line of floodlights between the two actual walls. The area in-between is only visible by peering through the gaps in the horizontal concrete-slab wall on the 'Eastern' side. I had seen the long stretch of wall, the 'East Side Gallery', running alongside the river, on previous visits. But this section in the middle of a suburb brought home the stark reality much more strongly. It was painfully apparent that people living in the low apartment blocks overlooking the wall could never visit their near neighbours just round the corner, with the wall carving its way through and blocking off residential roads.
Along with the new developments, a great deal of work is going into improving the city's already excellent public transport links. Very soon after the wall came down in 1989 and Germany re-unified in 1990, U-Bahn and S-Bahn services across the great divide started running again after re-opening dis-used tunnels and sections of line. Now, additional lines are being built to complete links and circular routes which never existed before, and a massive new station is sprouting on the elevated main railway line in the middle of the city a short way from the new government district.
Berlin is buzzing and vibrant. It is learning again how to be an integrated city, and a capital city. Without wishing to denigrate its past in any way, I can't help feeling like I am watching a small child grow up. I look forward to the teenage years with anticipation.
Heading south-east from Berlin by train, I noticed that railway station signs even in Germany had place names in German and Polish. When I looked at the map of Germany in more detail, it was obvious that place names in, for example, the north-west look indistinguishable from Dutch. This gradual shift in language across a continental land mass split into nations by increasingly arbitrary borders was fascinating, but I soon thought back and realised that the same is true in Great Britain. There are very obvious differences in place names from Cornwall with its Celtic Breton roots, through the West Country with wonderfully evocative Saxon names, up the Eastern side of the country with the Scandinavian linguistic influences of the Danelaw, and on to Scotland with its mixture of Celtic and Nordic influences.
Borders throughout the European Union are rapidly becoming less significant with common laws, currency and lack of border controls. The German-Polish border may well join them in 2004, but for now it is still particularly significant in its current location. This is very obvious on arrival in Wroclaw (pronounced Vrots-wahf) , which has in its time been part of the Bohemian, Austrian and German empires, most recently as Breslau in pre-war Germany. But since 1945, when Poland's borders shifted west, it has become Polish again, re-populated with Poles who moved west from areas which were ceded to Ukraine and Belarus while they were part of the Soviet Union.
Wroclaw's fabulous old town square has been largely reconstructed after the damage of World War II, and the mix of architectural styles, colours and textures of the buildings bears witness to this city's long and varied history. Sitting outside a cafe on one side of the enormous square, I look to left and right and see tall, narrow buildings with steep gabled roofs which would not look out of place in the Netherlands or parts of Belgium and north-eastern France. The old town hall on the other side of the square is a mix of Gothic, 15th century and early Rennaisance styles. Our hotel, the Monopol, is a Neo-Gothic late 19th century building of faded grandeur which played host to Adolf Hitler when he used to visit Breslau before the war. There are lots of wonderful churches and cathedrals of all styles dotted around the square and on the many islands in the river, including a wonderful brick Gothic church with an incredibly high nave. John Paul II, the first Polish pope from this very Catholic country, re-visited here in 1998. This is commemorated by a fine bronze bust by one of the brick columns in this church.
Wroclaw is a fine example of a city which has always been, and will become even more so, European.
The more I visit Berlin, the more I see and the more I realise how little I've seen. Such is the draw of any large, vibrant city, constantly bidding you to return.
But with Berlin, there is also the excitement of seeing real change in a short space of time. Even since my first visit three and a half years ago, a lot has changed. Potsdamer Platz, until recently a waste ground in no-mans land, is now full of architecturally impressive skyscrapers and entertainment complexes, sprinkled with cafes and bars along pedestrian throughfares.
To the north of the Brandenburg Gate, currently hidden behind scaffolding, is another complex of new buildings housing various government departments and the Chancellary on what was also formerly waste ground between the Reichstag and the Spree River.
The availability of such vast tracts of empty space in the middle of a major city is a legacy of bomb damage in World War II and, more recently, the partitioning of Berlin by the infamous wall, 'die Mauer'. One small stretch of this wall a short U-Bahn ride north has been preserved complete with no-mans land and line of floodlights between the two actual walls. The area in-between is only visible by peering through the gaps in the horizontal concrete-slab wall on the 'Eastern' side. I had seen the long stretch of wall, the 'East Side Gallery', running alongside the river, on previous visits. But this section in the middle of a suburb brought home the stark reality much more strongly. It was painfully apparent that people living in the low apartment blocks overlooking the wall could never visit their near neighbours just round the corner, with the wall carving its way through and blocking off residential roads.
Along with the new developments, a great deal of work is going into improving the city's already excellent public transport links. Very soon after the wall came down in 1989 and Germany re-unified in 1990, U-Bahn and S-Bahn services across the great divide started running again after re-opening dis-used tunnels and sections of line. Now, additional lines are being built to complete links and circular routes which never existed before, and a massive new station is sprouting on the elevated main railway line in the middle of the city a short way from the new government district.
Berlin is buzzing and vibrant. It is learning again how to be an integrated city, and a capital city. Without wishing to denigrate its past in any way, I can't help feeling like I am watching a small child grow up. I look forward to the teenage years with anticipation.
Heading south-east from Berlin by train, I noticed that railway station signs even in Germany had place names in German and Polish. When I looked at the map of Germany in more detail, it was obvious that place names in, for example, the north-west look indistinguishable from Dutch. This gradual shift in language across a continental land mass split into nations by increasingly arbitrary borders was fascinating, but I soon thought back and realised that the same is true in Great Britain. There are very obvious differences in place names from Cornwall with its Celtic Breton roots, through the West Country with wonderfully evocative Saxon names, up the Eastern side of the country with the Scandinavian linguistic influences of the Danelaw, and on to Scotland with its mixture of Celtic and Nordic influences.
Borders throughout the European Union are rapidly becoming less significant with common laws, currency and lack of border controls. The German-Polish border may well join them in 2004, but for now it is still particularly significant in its current location. This is very obvious on arrival in Wroclaw (pronounced Vrots-wahf) , which has in its time been part of the Bohemian, Austrian and German empires, most recently as Breslau in pre-war Germany. But since 1945, when Poland's borders shifted west, it has become Polish again, re-populated with Poles who moved west from areas which were ceded to Ukraine and Belarus while they were part of the Soviet Union.
Wroclaw's fabulous old town square has been largely reconstructed after the damage of World War II, and the mix of architectural styles, colours and textures of the buildings bears witness to this city's long and varied history. Sitting outside a cafe on one side of the enormous square, I look to left and right and see tall, narrow buildings with steep gabled roofs which would not look out of place in the Netherlands or parts of Belgium and north-eastern France. The old town hall on the other side of the square is a mix of Gothic, 15th century and early Rennaisance styles. Our hotel, the Monopol, is a Neo-Gothic late 19th century building of faded grandeur which played host to Adolf Hitler when he used to visit Breslau before the war. There are lots of wonderful churches and cathedrals of all styles dotted around the square and on the many islands in the river, including a wonderful brick Gothic church with an incredibly high nave. John Paul II, the first Polish pope from this very Catholic country, re-visited here in 1998. This is commemorated by a fine bronze bust by one of the brick columns in this church.
Wroclaw is a fine example of a city which has always been, and will become even more so, European.