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This small French department store specializes in classic womens- and menswear. The French delicacies on sale in the food department make many a heart beat faster, not just those of Francophiles (see Shops) .

Horse races take place against the historical backdrop of the Union Club 1867’s traditional race track, considered to be the most attractive track between Moscow and Paris. In the audience, horse- and betting-mad Berliners mingle with the city’s upper classes.

With 80 historic gaslights along the paths, an evening stroll in Tiergarten is very romantic.

The 1930s complex, which is today known as Bendlerblock, lies behind the former Prussian Ministry of War. During World War II it served as army headquarters. It was here that a group of officers planned the assassination of Adolf Hitler. When the attempt failed on 20 July 1944, Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg and the others involved were arrested in the Bendlerblock, and many of them were shot in the courtyard during the night. A memorial, created by Richard Scheibe in 1953, commemorates these events. On the upper floor is a small exhibition documenting the German resistance against the Nazi regime. Today, the Bendlerblock has been incorporated into the Berlin branch of the Federal Ministry of Defence.

Before 1939, this was one of the most important Jewish streets, with several Jewish schools, the oldest Jewish cemetery in Berlin and an old people’s home. The latter achieved tragic fame during the Nazi period – the SS used it as a detention centre for Berlin Jews before transporting them to the concentration camps. A simple monument commemorates thousands of Jews who were sent to their death from here. To the left of the home is a Jewish school, on the site of an earlier school founded in 1778 by the Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86). To the right of the monument is the Jewish cemetery, where some 12,000 Berlin Jews were buried between 1672 and 1827. In 1943, the Nazis almost completely destroyed the cemetery. Only a few Baroque tombs, or masebas , survived; these are now embedded into the small original cemetery wall. The place presumed to be Moses Mendelssohn’s tomb is marked by a new monument.

This former secret police prison for “political” prisoners was in use until 1990. Before 1951, it served as a reception centre for the Red Army. On a guided tour, you can visit the watchtowers and the cells – particularly horrifying are the so-called “submarine cells”, rooms without windows used for solitary confinement, where inmates were interrogated and tortured.

The former headquarters of the much-feared “Stasi”, East Germany’s secret police, is now a memorial, commemorating the thousands of victims of the East German regime and of Erich Mielke, the minister in charge of the secret police. Visitors can see his offices, the canteen and various pieces of spying equipment, revealing the methods used by the Socialist big-brother regime.

Berlin’s best art museum, the Gemäldegalerie focuses on European art of the 13th to 19th centuries, such as Caravaggio’s Cupid Victorious , and works by Dürer, Rembrandt and Rubens (see Gemäldegalerie) .

This square, whose strict layout is reminiscent of an Italian Renaissance piazza , is probably the most beautiful in Berlin. To the left and right of Schauspielhaus – today’s Konzerthaus – stand the twin towers of Deutscher and Französischer Dom (German and French cathedrals), dating back to the late 18th century. Gendarmenmarkt, named after a regiment of gens d’armes stationed nearby, was built at the end of the 17th century, as a market square. The Schauspielhaus (theatre) on the north side of the square, built by Schinkel in 1818–21, was used as a theatre until 1945. Damaged in World War II, it was reopened as Konzerthaus (concert hall) in 1984. A statue of the playwright Friedrich Schiller stands in front of the building. Französischer Dom, to its right, is a prestigious Late-Baroque building; concealed behind it is the French Friedrichstadtkirche, a church serving Berlin’s Huguenot community. The Deutscher Dom opposite, built in 1708 on the south side of the square for the Reformed Protestant Church, did not receive its first tower until 1785. Today it has an exhibition on democracy in Germany.