This was true from the moment I stepped off the train where I could see the WWII bombing damage to the Kaiser William Memorial Church:
And then the famous Brandenburg Gate that I know best for the pictures of people celebrating the tearing down of the wall that ran in front of the gate.
And of course the remaining piece of the wall itself. The picture shows the primary wall that ran above ground, and then a separate sunken wall designed to prevent people from digging out underneath it:
I visited the Checkpoint Charlie Museum built on the corner of the street opposite from the former Soviet-American border crossing point. It had stories and pictures of hundreds of escapes and attempted-escapes of by East Berliners wanting to get across to West Berlin. They used everything from a convertible that drove under the original gate to a man that flew his family out on a hot-air balloon, and many tunneling attempts. A lookout building that allowed West Berliners to look out across to East Berlin is still standing on the right of the picture. Across the city where the wall used to exist, they have laid bricks in the street. It was amazing to walk along the line of bricks and imagine that the way this city was torn apart. It can still be seen that the wall was built right up to the Western side, but many buildings on the Eastern side were either torn down or had their windows bricked up.
This is a sculpture built in West Berlin with two arms that were ever-so close, but never touched, representing the two halves of the city.
And then, there is the amazing amount of construction that has taken place on the former neutral zone since re-unification. One small new city center has been completed, high-lighted by the Mt. Fuji-shaped Sony building:
There is still a massive amount of new construction going on, with a skyline covered by cranes and a strange, "temporary" system of pink pipes that run above ground throughout the city to drain the basements of all of the construction sites:
Finally, I visited the Pergamon Museum. They have some fantastic Greek and Roman sculptures, the huge Pergamon Altar built in 160 BC, and this Market gateway facade from the Roman city of Miletus. I can't imagine visiting a city like this and thinking to myself, "Oh, we should pack this up and take it back home."! On the other hand, the description says that this particular facade had been destroyed in an earthquake, and excavated and restored by the Germans. Otherwise, it may have been furrther destroyed and lost to history.
They even brought the floor!
Here is a section of the Wall of Babylon!
