Alongside original segments of the wall, a row of steel stanchions marks the former border on Bernauer Strasse.

The Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse is getting a facelift – By Klaus Grimberg

Where exactly was the Berlin Wall? How did it work? What happened along it? Since 1989, visitors to Berlin have endlessly posed such questions. And the newly designed memorial on Bernauer Strasse is intended to exhaustively answer them.

At dawn on Oct. 24, 1969, Karl-Heinz Br. and Gerd W. crept through St. Sophia’s cemetery in East Berlin, which ran directly along a strip of the Berlin Wall. They were both in luck: The alarm system on the interior fence wasn’t working, so they were able to climb over it unnoticed. Now they crept through the border zone toward the Berlin Wall – just a few more meters and they were in West Berlin.

Only a dune seperates the family-owned inn from the beach near Wustrow (left). The indigo of this typical Ahrenshoop artist’s house enchants visitors (right). Traditional beach baskets at the beach near Zingst.

The Fischland-Darss-Zingst peninsula has been attracting Germany’s elite for years – By Michael Winckler

Only 300 kilometers away from Berlin, the endless interplay of wind and water has created a unique landscape on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

The panorama from the top of 35-meter-tall Darsser Ort lighthouse is in sharp focus, and magnificent. On the faraway horizon, piles of snow white clouds dramatically accent the azure sky that arches over the blue-black Baltic Sea.

To the north, the contours of Danish island Mon’s chalk coastline are visible, and to the northeast lies Hiddensee Island in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The spires of the churches in Stralsund, one of the cities belonging to the Hanseatic League, tower above the surrounding flat countryside. Sand dunes stretch far to the south.

“For millennia, the wind and waves have been shaping the area surrounding the lighthouse – and the result is a one-of-a-kind landscape,” said author Kristine von Soden, an authority on the region. The elements carry sand away from the place where the path to the lighthouse leaves the forest of giant ferns and spiring fir, birch and beech trees, and deposit it to the north.

Cycling, dancing, making music or just listening: three million people came to the Ruhr 2010 “half-time party” on the Ruhr Expressway.

With “Still Life on the Ruhr Expressway,” the people of the Ruhr celebrated themselves for a day – By Jan Kepp

People having picnics on the highway, bicycles and inline-skaters skimming over the asphalt – not just a few people either but millions. The party marking the halfway point of Ruhr 2010 was a nod to the everyday culture of the region.

The Ruhr expressway – the lifeblood of the region. Hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks roar every day along the four to six lanes of the Autobahn 40 (A40), which begins in Dortmund as Bundestrasse 1. The cities of Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Essen, Mühlheim, Oberhausen and Duisburg pop up one after another along a section that runs about 60 kilometers – lining the route like a chain of pearls cutting a swathe through the Ruhr conurbation.

The 5.3 million residents of this region know the road only too well. People love it because it runs through the heart of the coalfields and brings fresh perspectives with each mile. People hate it because it’s the most highly congested autobahn in Germany.

But nevertheless, nothing connects the cities and the people of the Ruhr more than the A40. And this is why the initiators of the European Capital of Culture Ruhr 2010 chose it to host the big half-time party: For one entire Sunday, this key section of the highway was closed to motor vehicles. Instead, 20,000 tables and benches placed on one side of the road invited people to take their seats at the “longest banquet table in the world.” The other side of the road was open to anything with wheels except those with motors.

The travel book “Tel Aviv Berlin,” designed and illustrated by artists from Israel and Germany, is one example of how Berlin is attracting Israeli artists.

Young Israeli musicians and artists have discovered Berlin as a cool place to live and work – By Robert Rigney

They are used to neighborhoods in which different cultures mix. But what young Israelis aren’t used to is cheap living and an anything-goes mentality. That is why they love Berlin.

An Israeli flag hangs over the dance floor, Eastern melodies and Hebrew pop pound from the loudspeakers: its Meschugge night in Berlin. DJ Aviv Netter is manning the turntables at the biggest and latest Israeli party in the city, whose nightlife is fast becoming infused by young Israeli DJs and musicians and their spicy, Middle Eastern-Mediterranean shakshuka sounds.

“I want to show the non-kosher side of Israel,” says Netter, who is hip, young, gay and in love with Berlin, where he has been living for the last four years.

It takes about three hours to fly from Tel Aviv to Berlin and there are five flights a day from Israel to the German capital. For the past two years, numerous young Israelis – particularly artists and musicians – have been arriving in Berlin in droves. One comes, then friends come, then more friends – like a rolling snowball.