Brandenburg Gate

The Brandenburg Gate is Berlin's central meeting point and the natural place to start a first walk through the city. From Pariser Platz, the square directly in front of it, you reach the Reichstag, the Holocaust Memorial and the boulevard Unter den Linden within a few minutes on foot. Not many European capitals put this many headline sights inside such a short stretch.

The gate itself was finished in the 1790s as a city gate. After 1961 it stood inside the death strip between East and West Berlin, unreachable from either side, and in 1989 it became the backdrop for reunification. That is why Germans treat it as a national symbol rather than a photo stop, and why it shows up on the two-euro coin.

Come early in the morning or after dark, when the gate is floodlit and the tour buses have gone. Midday in summer means crowds, costumed performers and very little room to stand back for a picture.

Getting here is simple: Brandenburger Tor station sits directly underneath and serves both the U-Bahn, Berlin's subway, and the S-Bahn, the mostly above-ground commuter rail that covers the wider region. One ticket is valid on both, plus trams and buses. Around the square you will find embassies, the Hotel Adlon and a handful of cafés, and the district around it, Mitte, has the densest concentration of hotels in the city.