Saturday, June 30th, 2007

Forget north and south. East or West is how people choose to divide themselves, whether it's Londoners or the world. And in the reunified Berlin, it's the tourists.

You have a completely different holiday experience in East Berlin compared to the West. Some tourists don't venture to the East at all. Instead they prefer to stay in the western district of Charlottenburg (named after Sophie Charlotte, the materialistic Prussian Queen) or Potsdam, wandering in awe around the pretty palaces and their lavish gardens, as if the First World War never happened. We only visited the West briefly, to see the more interesting parts like Kreuzberg, which have the spirit of the East in them anyway.

Unfortunately, the first part you see is the West, as that's the side nearest the main airport. Taking the bus to our hostel, we saw Berlin's version of Pall Mall, Unter den Linden, out the clean window. It was very quiet, immaculate and boring. It was the Germany I remember from family holidays in the 80s, when you could only visit the West. Unter den Linden is the street that's in both the West and the East, across which stands The Brandenburg Gate – which I see as the East's magnificent entrance.

In fact the only part of East Berlin which is like the West is the area at the end of Unter den Linden in the gentrified district of Mitte, but that's because all the old Prussian buildings and statues are being restored after being destroyed in the wars, making it look like a life-size replica of itself, that's destined for the Epcot Centre in Disneyworld. Huge Prussian statues of Victory are everywhere looking down on you, making the atmosphere very repressive and authoritarian. The only building that's not being restored is the old East German Parliament. It's actually been destroyed and in its place the old Prussian Stadtschloss will rise up once again.

There's a lot of Prussian reconstruction going on, and not much preservation of the GDR. I don't know why one oppressive power is more important than the other. Maybe the Prussian stuff is more popular with the tourists. Well it's aesthetic and familiar – most is based on Baroque. Thing is, if you want to see that, you should go to Rome.

Luckily some Trabants drive past and add some colour. You can now hire out these cool cars the West used to berate so much. To me they're the more acceptable version of the Beetle, since they're cute, nostalgic and weren't designed by Hitler.