The city of Berlin grew up from a small settlement around the area known as the Nikolai Quarter on the banks of the River Spree.
The city grew quickly into a major city, and eventually was made the capital of Germany.
During the second world war, the city was heavily bombed, reducing much of it to rubble, and because the east and west sides of the city were built by opposing ideologies, the difference between the two sides is architecturally obvious to this day.
Throughout the cold war, the city was divided into two halves, communist East, and American, and eventually German run West, and the capital of west Germany was moved to Bonn, a small university town close to Cologne.
When the cold war finished, and the Berlin wall came down in 1989, the move toward reunification began, and when the country became one again, Berlin became capital once more.
Now reinventing itself as a modern city, Berlin is a city that has become far more accessible to travellers in recent years, and is increasingly popular as a short break destination from the UK.
