Berlin Vacation Article

Berlin Vacation

A visit to Berlin is certainly a must for anyone visiting Germany and if you are one of those that are interested in the past and even in the present, be prepared to choose among the more than one hundred and forty museums situated in Berlin alone. It should not come as any big surprise that there is so much to see and do here given the fact that Berlin is the capital as well as one of the sixteen states that form the Federal Republic of Germany. This metropolitan area happens to be the fifth largest in the European Union and has a population of almost five million people with different nationalities that come from more than one hundred and eighty nations.

A visit to Berlin will provide you with an opportunity to revel in the culture, politics, media as well as scientific matters and it is also a central hub for much air and also rail transport. Such is the attraction of this wonderful city that it is ranked fourth in terms of the most visited tourist destinations in the whole of the European Union. You will find many renowned universities as well as research institutes located in Berlin and it also has many venues for holding sporting events, and of course orchestras. There are also famous festivals held here and there is also much contemporary architecture evident in its buildings. The nightlife is outstanding and you can also sample avant-garde arts, and it also is quite well known for its liberal style of life. If you are lucky, you might just be in time someday to attend the annual Art Forum that is an international fair focusing on modern art.

For those who wish to sample the nightlife there are also many underground as well as counter-culture gatherings to go to besides the more famous nightclubs such as the Kunst Haus Tacheles, and techno clubs like Tresor, WMF, Ufo as well as E-Werk and the not so above board Kitkatclub and Berghain.

You might also find the Karneval der Kulturen a thing of interest and this diversely ethnic street parade is celebrated each Pentecost weekend. Of special interest to culture lovers would be the ensemble of museums on Museum Island that is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site that you will find to the north of Spree Island and more exactly between Kupfergraben and Spree. There are also many other museums that, though they do not fall in the Museum Island, are nevertheless of much interest to tourists and included in these museums are the Gemaldegalerie or the Painting Gallery, the Neue Nationalgalerie or the New National Gallery and the museum for architecture called the Bauhaus Archiv.

For relaxation you could check out the Zoologischer Garten Berlin that is older than the other zoo in the city having been founded in the year 1844 and which contains a diversity of wildlife that come from different parts of the world. Here, you can view the polar bear called Knut who came into the world in December 2006. Other places of tourist interest include Berlin's Botanischer Garten, Tiegarten and the many beach bars bordering the banks of the River Spree.