Though it may lack Rome’s antiquities, London’s sophistication, and the romance of Paris, no other European city can match its risk-taking, cutting-edge style, its extraordinary contemporary architecture, or its ability to get the visitor in touch with some of the 20th century’s most significant events. Of course, we are talking about Berlin, a town that in just 17 years has undergone the municipal equivalent of a face-lift and multiple organ transplants. It seems only yesterday that it was two cities, one dispirited and crumbling, the other vital and lively but hemmed in by concrete, barbed wire, and armed watchtowers. Traces of the divided city can still be found, but they are fast disappearing.

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In 2007, Berlin is a city of cultural as well as urban renewal, with frequent openings of new and restored museums, monuments, and institutions. The latest architectural colossus is the spectacular, glass-canopied, multilevel Lehrter Bahnhof, now Europe’s largest transportation hub, able to handle nearly a quarter of a million passengers daily. Another recent significant addition to the long list of Berlin must-see destinations is the haunting Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a short distance from the Brandenburg Gate. And, or course, there are the seven major symphony orchestras, including what say is the world's best, the Berlin Philharmonic. There are three world-class opera houses and the most movie theaters (92 cinemas, 250 screens) of any city in Europe. Many movies are shown in English (Tip: To know whether movies will be shown in English check the local listings. OV or OF means “original version” or “original fassung”; OMu means “original with subtitles”; and OmE means “original with English subtitles if not an English-language film).

Berlin is also a place of vast parks and waterways, nonstop nightlife, Germany’s best shopping, and the finest and most varied cuisine of any city in our three countries. Best of all, its hotels and restaurants are priced lower than any major city in western Europe.

Here’s a roundup of our suggestions for sights, hotels and restaurants.

Getting Around
Berlin is big and spread out. Plan to rely on its excellent rail and bus system. The Berlin WelcomeCard offers unlimited transportation for one adult and up to three children under 14, plus a discount of 25 percent or more to 120 cultural and sightseeing attractions. The 48-hour card is €16 and the 72-hour version costs €21. Sold at most train platforms.

A cheap, easy way to get to many Berlin sights is via the double-decker #100 bus that goes from the Bahnhof Zoo station to Alexanderplatz in the Mitte. It runs frequently, enabling sightseers to get on and off along the way at such attractions as the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church, the Siegessäule (Victory Column), the Tiergarten, Bellevue castle, the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, the Deutsche Staatsoper and St. Hedwigs Cathedral. Ride free with the Berlin WelcomeCard.

Sights, Activities
To give Berlin a fair shake, you’ll need at least three full days. The following list of things to see is far from complete; we’ve left out dozens worthy of your time: Charlotttenburg Palace, the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, the Gendarmenmarkt, the Tiergarten, the Zoo, the Transport and Technical Museum, the Olympic Stadium, the Airlift Memorial, the Dahlem Museums, Berlin’s rivers and lakes, and more.

• Potsdamer Platz: In the futuristic outdoor atrium, beneath the Sony building’s lofty dome, it’s hard to imagine that early in the 20th century this ground was Berlin’s Times Square, and just a few years ago was a vacant lot in no-mans-land between the two Berlins.
• Kurfürstendamm: This wide, tree-shaded boulevard is a fascinating stroll day or night and Berlin’s best shopping street.
• KaDeWe’s Food Floor: Europe’s largest food hall: 400 kinds of bread; 1,200 varieties of sausage, bacon, and ham; 1,300 cheeses, and dozens of places to have lunch. A magnificent display of food and drink. Tauentzienstr. 21-24
• Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: On the site of Hitler’s chancellery, a block south of the Brandenburg Gate, this unique monument effectively communicates, without explanatory signage, a sense of unease and loss. It is free and accessible 24/7. In May, The American Institute for Architects (AIA) will award its 2007 “AIA Institute Honor Award” to this evocative memorial.
• Topography of Terror: There are only remnants of the foundation of the former Gestapo and SS headquarters. Powerful, nonetheless. Niederkirchnerstrasse 8
• Soviet Memorial: Dedicated to the Soviet soldiers lost in the 1945 Battle of Berlin. Before 1989, every Western tour bus was required to stop at this outlandish but moving monument in Treptow Park. The soldiers’ remains rest in mass graves around the principal monument. Under terms of the unification, Germany continues to maintain this and other Soviet memorials on German soil.
• Mercedes Welt am Salzufer: Yes, it’s a new car showroom, but probably unlike any you’ve ever seen. The five-story, steel and glass, atrium-style building encloses two restaurants, a private club with indoor climbing wall and racquet ball courts, and, of course, all those gleaming Mercedes Benz cars, new and rare vintage models; some suspended by long cables from overhead steel girders. Enjoy a wurst and a beer while watching CNN on high-definition TV in the informal main floor restaurant. Salzufer 1, off Strasse des 17. Juni, near the Tiergarten S-Bahn station
• Jewish Museum: The focus here is not on the Holocaust, as one might assume, but on Jewish life in Germany. Plan for at least half a day and don’t, as we did, spend too much time on the early exhibits. There is much to see and you can wear yourself out before you’ve been through half of it. Museum personnel are extraordinarily helpful. Expect security measures upon entry. There is an excellent, reasonably-priced restaurant. Admission is inexpensive: €5 for adults and €2.5 for seniors and students. Lindenstrae 9-14, +49/030/25993 300, fax 25993 409, info@jmberlin.de, www.juedisches-museum-berlin.de
• Checkpoint Charlie Museum: Not-to-be-missed documentation of the history of the Berlin Wall and the many East-to-West escape attempts. One of the few sections of the Wall still standing can be reached from here via Zimmerstrasse. Checkpoint Charlie Museum, 43-44 Friedrichstrasse. Admission €9.5, students €5.5 (25 percent discount with WelcomeCard), www.mauermuseum.de
• More Museums: No one should miss the Pergamon and its thousands-of-years-old antiquities, the most spectacular being the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate. See Raphaels and Vermeers at the Gemäldegalerie and then go next door on the same entrance ticket to view far-out modern stuff in the Neue Nationalgalerie. Movie-goers will enjoy the Berlin Film Museum in the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz. The Marlene Dietrich exhibit, which changes every six months, is part of the larger Dietrich collection of some 3,500 items.
• Friedrichstadtpalast: This surprisingly spectacular Las Vegas-style revue in the Mitte is a pleasant leftover from communist times, when tickets rewarded favored party apparatchiks. There are acrobats, a full orchestra, singers, dancers, opulent costumes, and elaborate stagecraft that includes a retractable, mermaid-filled glass swimming pool arising from the center of the stage. Even the cheap seats have good sightlines. Friedrichstrasse 107, tel. +49/030/23 26 23 26, fax 23 26 23 23, tickets@friedrichstadtpalast.de
• Ballhaus Mitte, an atmospheric, chandeliered ballroom in a prewar building in the Mitte, delivers the sort of entertainment Berlin is famous for. This off-beat restaurant/night club serves dinner with a variety of live music. Depending on when you’re there, it could be Argentine Tango, American Swing, or Vienna lieder (songs). The Pasta Opera, scheduled about once a month (more frequently in summer), combines a multi-course Italian dinner with popular operatic arias sung by costumed performers (see video clips at www.pastaopera.de). Ballhaus Mitte, Auguststr. 24, www.ballhaus.de
• Loxx Miniatur Welten Berlin claims to be the largest model railway in the world. Computer-operated trains, trams, cars, trucks, buses, and even airplanes, relentlessly move through a vast scale model of the city of Berlin laid out over a 2,500 square meter space. The landscape presents hundreds of familiar scenes and buildings, including the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, Alexanderplatz TV tower, the Zoologischer Garden, Hackescher Markt, railway stations, airports, harbor installations, military facilities, and, of course, dozens of streetcars, regional and long-distance trains, steam trains, highspeed ICE (Intercity-Express) trains, as well as a computer-controlled motor traffic system with cars, trucks and busses. Adult admission is €7.5, €4 for children 9-14, and €2 for kids under 9. Meinekestrasse 24 (Passage), info@loxx-berlin.de, www.loxx-berlin.de
  

Sightseeing, local transportation, tours, day excursions from Berlin

Important 2007 Art Exhibits

• A major exhibition of 19th Century French Masters, on loan from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, will be on display at Berlin’s New National Gallery from June 1st – October 7th. The 150 masterpieces by 45 renowned artists include works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Picasso, and van Gogh. Edouard Manet’s well-known light blue painting “Boating” and Claude Monet’s atmospheric “Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies”, are among some of the highlights of the extensive display. Berlin’s Mies van der Rohe-designed New National Gallery will temporarily join the Musée d’Orsay in Paris as the leading museum for French Impressionist art in Europe. Opening hours will be Tue-Wed 10am-6pm, Thu 10am-10pm, Fri/Sat 10am-8pm (www.neue-nationalgalerie.de). To avoid lines, tickets for the exhibition can be booked in advance through Berlin Tourismus Marketing, for €30, plus fees and shipping (including an audio guide), starting April 2007. Call +49/030/25 00 25.
• From June 15 through September 17, the Martin-Gropius-Bau will present a major Cindy Sherman retrospective arranged by the Jeu de Paume in Paris. The exhibition comprises works produced by the artist between 1975 and 2005. Even in her earliest works, Sherman almost always featured herself as the model and subject of her productions. She puts together her fictitious personae with the help of various accessories, such as make-up, costumes or artificial limbs, and photographs them in the studio. The figures represent social and cultural stereotypes and are constructed in a partly parodist, partly caustic and occasionally brutal manner, carefully examined and then portrayed in the various presentation vehicles, including magazines, advertising, cinematic art and classical painting. The outcome is a subtle analysis of human identity, especially female identity, as well as of the fantasies that it engenders and the powers to which it is exposed. www.gropiusbau.de
  

Bike and Walking Tours
The flat topography of Berlin is well-suited to bicycling. The routes traveled by Fat Tire Bike Tours are almost exclusively on bike paths and roads with less traffic. Guides are native English speakers. Fat Tire offers a 4.5-hour City Tour that includes most of the major sights including the Reichstag, Soviet War Memorial, Potsdamer Platz, Unter den Linden, Hitler’s Bunker, Topography of Terror, Brandenburg Gate, parks, beer gardens, and more. The Wall Tour focuses on the city’s Cold War history, and enhances the visited locations with tales of escape and espionage. Cost including bike, insurance, and guide is E20 for adults and E17 for seniors and students. Reservations not necessary, just show up. Tours start under the giant TV tower at Alexanderplatz. If you want a bike but no tour, rentals are €7 for a half-day and €12 for a full day. Fat Tire Bike Tours, Panorama Strasse 1a, tel. +49/030/24 04 79 91, info@fattiretoursberlin.com, www.fattiretoursberlin.com

Original Berlin Walks offers theme-based tours, all in English, including its basic Discover Berlin which costs €12 with the Berlin WelcomeCard and takes four hours. Other tours are Jewish Life in Berlin, Infamous Third Reich Sites, Sachenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial Tour, and “Discover Potsdam. Private tours can also be arranged. Some tours may require a pass for public transportation. Original Berlin Walks, tel. +49/030/301 9194, office@berlinwalks.de, www.berlinwalks.de

Insider Tours offers Famous Insider Tour, Wall Tour, Third Reich Tour, and a Pub Crawl. Prices from €9 to €12. Tours take from three to five hours.