Just before Christmas 2024, we visited Berlin and explored that fascinating city.

There are so many diverse aspects to Berlin in December: the fun & excitement of the Christmas markets, crazy light displays, exquisite craftwork in festive shops, the amazing Humboldt Forum art museum, the iconic Brandenburg Gate, the opportunity to reflect upon the worst of human history in the Holocaust Memorial and at the monument to brave Aryan women defending their Jewish husbands and sons in Rosenstrasse; from the sheer folly & farce of life in east Germany from the 1960s to 1989, shown at the DDR Museum; to the openness, transparency, and inspiration of the present day Reichstag where the Bundestag meet.

But the most impactful experience for me was wandering down past the East Side Gallery of the remaining Berlin Wall, seeing all the hopes and visions of the artists whose work is represented there, and then going behind it to see the Death Strip, and to imagine just how it must have felt to live in the German Democratic Republic and gaze across that dangerous area, past the armed guards, and long for life in a free society.

Here are a few pictures to give a sense of that experience.

Sign up here to join me on my writing journey. You’ll receive my monthly newletter direct to your mailbox. I share gems and snippets from my research discoveries, news and insights from the writing and publishing world, and you’ll be the first to know when I have a new book coming out.