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Of strategic importance since it first straddled the Spree River in the 13th century, Berlin went on to hog centre stage in the turbulent twentieth. Today the city, restored as the nation's capital, is the focus of a mammoth project of reunification and the baBerlinter of Germany's moods.

This is the heart of Germany, with a stoic beat that echoes through grand public buildings, glorious museums and theatres, urbane restaurants, bustling pubs and raucous nightclubs. The Wall is gone but Berlin is still divided: there's a distinct segue from the glitz of the west to shabby East Berlin.

This area was quickly colonised by the trendy cafe-bar set in the early 1990s and swift rebuilding has erased nearly all trace of the Wall. It's the suburbs of East Berlin with their grey and decaying apartment blocks, cardboard cars and paucity of telephones that make it apparent that the Wall was up to protect a utilitarian East from a decadent West.

Before it came down, the Wall was the most enduring icon of a nation's disharmony. But it's not as if the city hadn't seen it all before. From the civic turmoil of the Thirty Years War, to the devastating impact of the fire-bombing during WWII, Berlin has constantly been under siege or in a post-siege rebuilding phase.

Berlin sits in the middle of the region known from medieval times as the Mark of Brandenburg, now the Bundesland (federal state) of Brandenburg. The city spills north and south of the Spree River, which winds through some of the magnificent parkland that comprises a third of the municipal area. In 2001, Berlin's previous 23 administrative districts were reduced to 12 in an effort to curb bureaucracy. There is little impact on visitors, however, as the old district names continue to be used.

You can't really get lost within sight of the brooding and monstrous Fernsehturm (TV Tower), a useful orientation point visible from most of central Berlin. Unter der Linden, the fashionable avenue of aristocratic old Berlin, extends from the Brandenburg Gate to Alexanderplatz, once the heart of socialist East Germany. Some of Berlin's finest museums are on Museumsinsel in the Spree, the original centre of the metropolis. West of the Brandenburg Gate, the boulevard runs through Tiergarten, a huge landscaped park. You may remember the Victory Column at its centre from the Wim Wender's film Wings of Desire. The commercial centre of West Berlin glitters just to the south. The real revelation for visitors at the moment, however, is Friedrichshain, once a grotty district favoured by backpackers for its cheapness. Right now this is the place to come for a long night out. Things are still cheap here by Berlin standards, but the area south of Frankfurter Allee has suddenly become the city's hottest nightlife zone, with new bars and clubs popping up like magic mushrooms. The original spirit of the district still survives around Rigaer Strasse, where hard-core squatters run some pretty anarchic bar-clubs. Most open whenever someone feels like it, and their existence is constantly threatened by police busts. South of the Brandenburger Gate, in areas once occupied by the Wall, Berlin's newest quarter has emerged around Potsdamer Platz.