One of the most beautiful pieces of Berlin actually is a piece of another city (Al-Hillah, Iraq). Normally Berliners are laid back and like to hang around, drink beer and chat till sunrise. Sometimes they do get excited though, and then they start taking old war-battered stones and piecing them together to (re)form walls. The results are great as can be seen all over Berlin, but the Ishtar gate in the Pergamon museum is where they’ve really outdone themselves.

Kw is a great art institute situated at the backyard of a very eastern part of town, place for many other small galleries. Auguststrasse is worth the walk and Kw is worth the stop.

Peres Projects mostly showcases young, emerging artists and is at the forefront of fusing art with fashion, celebrity and the love of a good party, which seems to work very well in Berlin. Having recently moved into an ex-Soviet building on Karl Marx Allee, the giant new space contrasts brilliantly with the commanding facade.

Cemetery of the Dreifaltigkeitsgemeinde (Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof) in Kreuzburg on Mehringdamm 22, between Zossener Strasse and Blücherstrasse. The grandson of German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, is musician Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn who was born in Hamburg and lived in Berlin from age two. Felix Mendelssohn and his family are buried in the middle of Kreuzburg at the Cemetery of the Dreifaltigkeitsgemeinde. Today it is administered together with its 5 neighbouring Protestant cemeteries by the cemetery administration St. Jacobi number I.

Volksbühne hosts and produces an intriguing program of theatre performances, contemporary dance and concerts.