 Sights
 Medieval Remnants
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Divided City
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Tours
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Marienkirche
10178 Berlin - Mitte | Tel: 242 36 00, Fax: no fax | S+U Alexanderplatz | Times: Mon-Thurs 10-16, Sat & Sun 12-16 | Price: free.
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 Although the Gothic nave of Berlin's oldest parish church dates back to 1270, the tower was only added in 1466, with Schlüter's upper section and Langhans' pulpit not in place until the 18th century. At the entrance is the 23m long frieze "Totentanz" (Dance of Death) portraying Death in fourteen different guises to raise our attention to the fact that, on this earth, we are all equal in the eyes of God. Near the entrance to the west is a small cross which was erected by the people of Cölln and Berlin to get back on speaking terms with the pope after one of his representatives was killed by a mob on a marketplace in the vicinity. Middle Age tradition says that if a convicted criminal can get each of the five fingers from one hand into the five holes on the cross then he would be excused the punishment sentenced. The holes, however, were so arranged that only those with mutated hands would find the task easy enough to carry out. In 1989 the church was used for one of the first East Berlin civil rights sit-ins, as churches were one of the few places where large crowds of people were legally permitted to gather.
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Old City Wall - Alte Stadtmauer
Littenstr. , 10179 Berlin - Mitte | U2 Klosterstraße | Cnr Waisenstr.
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Scabby looking part of the old medieval city wall which surrounded the settlement in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Built along one part of it is a small row of reconstucted houses, one of which is the famous restaurant, "Zur Letzten Instanz". A restaurant has been on this site for the last four hundred odd years. Napoloen was said to have eaten in a previous incarnation of this establishment, on his jaunt across Europe, and was reported to have found his Bouletten "merde".
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Spandau Citadel (Zitadelle & Juliusturm, Spandau)
Am Juliusturm , 13599 Berlin - Spandau | Tel: 339 11, Fax: no fax | U7 Zitadelle | Times: Tues-Sun 9-17. | Prices: both museums & tower € 4, conc. € 2.
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Finished in 1594 after 34 years of construction, the Italian style Citadel is situated on a small island on the Havel river and was designed to command the water next to the Spree. You can wander for free around the citadel, which has been used in the past as a prison and laboratory. Sadly, a lot of the site is under excavation and renovation, but a visit to the galleries and the two museum exhibitions is still possible. Probably of most interest to visitors is the 12th century Juliusturm which as well as being the oldest non-religious building in Berlin is the place where the 120 million Reichsmark imperial war treasure (effectively the reparations paid to the Germans by the French after the Franco-Prussian War of 1874) was stored until 1919. In some German financial quarters the word "Juliusturm" is still used to refer to the state reserve.
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