3 Best Sights in Berlin, Germany

The once-bustling street of cafés and theaters of prewar Berlin has risen from the rubble of war and Communist neglect to reclaim the crowds with shopping emporiums. North of the train station you will see the rejuvenated heart of the entertainment center of Berlin's Roaring Twenties, including the Admiralspalast and the somewhat kitschy Friedrichstadt Palast.

This busy thoroughfare began as a riding path in the 16th century. The elector Joachim II of Brandenburg used it to travel between his palace on the Spree River and his hunting lodge in the Grunewald. The Kurfürstendamm (Elector's Causeway) was transformed into a major route in the late 19th century, thanks to the initiative of Bismarck, Prussia's Iron Chancellor. Even in the 1920s, Ku'damm (as it's commonly known) was still relatively new and by no means elegant; its prewar fame was due mainly to its rowdy bars and dance halls, as well as to the cafés where the cultural avant-garde of Europe gathered. Almost half of its 245 late-19th-century buildings were completely destroyed in the 1940s, and the remaining buildings were damaged to varying degrees; what you see today is either restored or newly constructed. Although Ku'damm is still known as the best shopping street in Berlin, many of its establishments have declined in elegance and prestige over the years. Nowadays you'll want to visit just to check it off your list.

The name of this historic Berlin thoroughfare, between the Brandenburg Gate and Schlossplatz, means "under the linden trees," and it was indeed lined with fragrant and beloved lindens until the 1930s. Imagine Berliners' shock when Hitler decided to fell the trees in order to make the street more parade-friendly. The grand boulevard began as a riding path that the royals used to get from their palace to their hunting grounds (now the central Berlin park called Tiergarten). It is once again lined with linden trees planted after World War II.