Berlin: A City Divided Now Reunited

Now the capital of Germany, for many years, Berlin was still a capital city, but of East Germany, when the country was divided during the Cold War. Literally cut in half almost overnight, the Berlin Wall left families torn in two, with some living in West Berlin and others stuck on the East side with no way out.

It all started after the Second World War, when Berlin was divided up between the Allies; The United States, Britain, France, and Russia, with each getting roughly a quarter of the city. However, as the years went on and the Cold War took hold, Berlin took center stage in the battle against Communism. In a bid to stem the number of refugees heading to the western parts of the city, the Russians decided to build a wall in 1961 and that was the end of a unified city, until the wall fell in 1989.

Bearing in mind that the historic events of the fall of the wall only took place two decades ago, it's amazing that today the city shows very few signs of ever having been divided. Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous way to move between the two parts of the city, still remains, but today it's there mainly for the tourists to have their photo taken with it -- and people dressed as Russian and American soldiers - in the background.

The nearby Checkpoint Charlie Museum is a fascinating place to visit, although at first glance it looks tiny and when we visited, it was absolutely packed with people. However, head upstairs and suddenly you realize that the museum runs almost the length of the street and is a real hidden gem. It also brings home to you how people lived while the city was divided and, although there were some humorous stories to read in there, it did make you think about the desperate lengths people would go to so they could cross from the east of the city to the west.

Today where the wall once stood is marked out, wherever possible, with bricks on the roads and pavements and it doesn't take long before you realize that most of the major sights are in what used to be East Berlin. That includes the Brandenburg Gate, perhaps the city's most famous sight. The gate dates from 1795 and is a striking sight today, having recently undergone a major restoration program.