The mug you already paid for, the wooden smoker that is really from Saxony, the star that folds flat, and the bottle that will not get through security.

Episode 6 of Where It Happened: a press conference that said immediately, an officer with no new orders, and the barrier at Bornholmer Straße that went up around half past eleven on 9 November 1989.

Twelve districts since 2001, made from twenty-three. Which one you live in, what its offices do for you, and which errands ignore district lines completely.

Episode 5 of Where It Happened: the Cold War listening tunnel under Berlin, the Glienicke Bridge where spies were swapped, and how to stand on the old border today.

Berlin built fourteen market halls in the 1880s and four still sell food. Which one is worth your afternoon depends on the day and the hour, so here is how to pick.

Berlin still has more than 16,000 gas street lamps, almost all in the former West, and only about 3,300 are meant to stay. Type your street to see where yours stand.

The TV Tower keeps showing up at the end of Berlin streets. These free viewpoints outside Mitte line it up with an avenue, a river or a hill, and each needs its own hour.

Who lived in your flat in 1910? In Berlin you can usually find out, much of it free online. Here is the order I would search in, from the old address books to the building file.

The bear is on every flag and souvenir in Berlin, but few visitors know why. Here is how a pun put it on the coat of arms, and the handful of bears worth a detour on a short trip.

A boar walked into a Köpenick shopping centre in March 2026. Here is how to handle a meeting on the path, keep your dog and garden safe, and who to call in Berlin.

Four rows of lamps, no numbers and no hands. Here is how to read the Berlin clock in about a minute, where to find it, and why its inventor ended up rebuilding the light bulb.

A parcel from outside the EU costs more from 1 November. Here is what you pay at each value, how the €45 gift limit works, and the four ways to get a parcel out of the Zollamt before it goes back.

I went through ten winters of hourly weather at Tempelhof. A Berlin winter is a damp, windy 0 to 5°C with a few hard spells, so here is the coat, the boots and the layers I would pack, plus a grid that sets them by week and hour.

Episode 4 of Where It Happened: how the 1948 Berlin airlift fed a blockaded city from the air, and where to stand at Tempelhof today.

In January 2026 the power went out in Zehlendorf, Wannsee, Nikolassee and Lichterfelde for more than four days, and the phones went with it. What a Katastrophenschutz-Leuchtturm is, why only 25 of Berlin's 56 are ready, and how to find yours by postcode.