Our popular Berlin guide, updated and redesigned. It is one of the great joys of spending time in Berlin that this city which has seen so many terrible events is once more exuberant and vibrant, albeit with lingering dark shadows. It s a city with fertile ground, providing a stable base for the rootless, enticed not just by lower rents, but a sense that this is a refuge, forward-looking but not in thrall to the whims of fashion. It s a place where the oddball can feel at home and even thrive, yet it retains distinctive and appealing German characteristics: for all its bohemian spirit, it is orderly, efficient, cultured. In this guide you can find beautiful parks, wonderful bread, elegant stationery, intoxicating drinks and excellent coffee, as well as Korean fast food chicken and the world s only Ramones museum. It is an unlikely mixture perhaps, but it s what we think of, when we think of Berlin.