Just a three day stopover in Berlin, en route from a home exchange in Bruges to another in Stockholm, was never going to be enough.

"Twenty five years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city is no longer divided but a vibrant metropolis and the setting of so much history. Berlin today is a place of ideas, inspiration and vision." Visit Berlin, official tourism website

The Brandenburg Gate, fine Prussian era buildings such as the Staadoper and Humboldt University on Unter den Linden, once enclosed in East Germany, are now showpieces in this modern city. The Reichstag, burned, bombed, handsomely rebuilt and now the seat of German government, is open to a steady stream of visitors. The inspiring museums on Museum Island have been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999. We spent time at the Neues Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie and the DDR Museum, a hands on look at life in Eastern Germany, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, under the Stasi since 1950.

A walk in parts of the extensive Tiergarten, a visit to Schloss Charlottenburg and the Broehan Gallery gave us an insight into the elegant past of Berlin. The Broehan Gallery depicts La Belle Epoque, the era of art nouveau, art deco and styles between 1889 and 1939.

The Holocaust Memorial was not to be missed as we reflected on Germany's dark past and then there was the other side of Berlin - free thinkers, intelligentsia, artists and eccentrics, all part of the city's edginess and pulse.

We stayed in the Kurfurstendam area, near Charlottenburg, "the glittering heart of West Berlin during the Cold War" LP Here we enjoyed the elegant boulevarde and streets of "Jugendstil" era architecture.