Berlin: Europe's Most Under-Appreciated Capital

Poor Berlin. Whilst the drama of the former wall gives it high name recognition, it just doesn't rank near the top of most people's holiday sweeps through Europe. London, Paris, Rome, perhaps Madrid are the usual grand circle. But Berlin? Yes, it absolutely deserves to be up there with the luminaries.

The altar of Zeus from Pergamon, in the Pergamon Museum, is one of Berlin's blockbuster sights

I was there this week on that rarest of things: A fun business trip. The usual trip profile is airport to office or conference hotel, catch the city through a few windows and during your taxi to and from dinner, then return to airport. This time I flew out early to sneak a couple hours' sightseeing, and then discovered that our VP had arranged for us to do some teambuilding via a scavenger hunt across the city, rather than via communal PowerPoint endurance. Bliss.

Berlin is dynamic and edgy. Compared to London, it's sparklingly clean, everything is in good repair and beautiful new buildings are incorportated everywhere next to old ones. This, of course, is because so much of the city has been rebuilt. Even many of the oldest cultural icons, like the Cathedral, are actually brand new recreations of what stood there before. Architectural purists turn their nose up at "recreation". In my eyes it's built a gracious city filled with good buildings. I love it.

I feel a bit sorry for the Westerners, who are now seeing all the tourism and conference money heading to the East.

The old East Berlin is the place to be these days. I feel a bit sorry for the Westerners, who held out through the cold war and then contributed so much economically to unification. It must be irritating to see all the best hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions, etc. sprouting up on the other side. We stayed at the Hilton on Gendarmenmarkt, a massive and well-appointed conference hotel that could be in New York ... except that it's looking out on a square dominated by twin baroque churches and the bombastic National Theatre. (Let's face it, there's something about the Germans that makes them very good at big, bold and slightly domineering buildings.) Not priced for tourists, of course, but the location might be worth the extra costs. Walking distance to most important sights.

I'll mention three specific highlights.

For the best traditional German food, a trip to Lutter and Wegner, also on Gendarmenmarkt, is a must. This bastion of tradition has been there since the mid-19th century and has everything you'd expect. Dignified interiors, waiters with old world charm and peak efficiency, a fabulous selection of German white wine and, of course, requisite dishes like wienerschnitzel and apple struedel that prove German food can be sophisticated and delicate when done right.

For a unique sightseeing option, consider a Trabant safari. Trabants, or "trabis" as they're more commonly called, were the cars of the people churned out by the Communist government. They're a bit like old minis, but even more basic. How any of them are still on the road, I don't know. The trabi safari company has rescued a whole fleet of them and now runs tours in which a lead car takes two of three following cars around and gives commentary over a radio broadcast system. It's a fun, different way to see the city, especially for any car buff. Of course, someone has to drive, and there are no automatic transmission versions!
See www.trabi-safari.de for details.

Finally, for me the cultural highlight of Berlin is the Pergamon Museum. This is the German version of the British Museum, packed with incredible architectural and artistic relics of the ancient world. Not as big as the British version, but several of the displays are truly jaw-dropping. The museum's raison d'etre is the great altar of Zeus from Pergamon. The city is now a backwater in Turkey but at the time of construction a powerful Greek colony. This was, quite simply, one of the great architectural wonders of the ancient world (not in the official seven, but in the same league) and its west front has been excavated, brought to Germany in bits and re-assembled in Berlin to actual size. The relief sculptures are amongst the finest ever to come out of ancient Greece, and make the Elgin marbles in London pale into insignificance. In side galleries you have other massive facades brought home from the Greco Roman world, plus the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, again put back together to blow you away with its drama and scale. The galleries on ancient Mesopotamia hold what are probably some of the best collections in the Western world.

I'd dreamed of going to this museum since I was a kid. In my youth it was unthinkable. It was behind enemy lines, the cultural hostage of the bad guys. These days, you can stroll to it in 15 minutes from your five-star business hotel, grabbing a cappucino and a copy of the Wall Street Journal on the way. It does give me hope that the real Babylon, and Persepolis, and all those other magnificent sites in Iran and Iraq, may become accessible before I die. In the mean time, I'm glad the Germans carted so much of this stuff back for us to appreciate closer to home.