Round The World and other travel

Berlin 1997

In 1997, the wall was gone and reconstruction was underway in earnest.

	By 1997, the Reichstag had been earmarked as the future site of the German parliament.		Still isolated, but for a quite different reason!		The controversial new design, complete with glass dome, by British architect Sir Norman Foster. Other examples of his work include Glasgow's 'Armadillo' and London's 'Gherkin'.
	Having first seen the Brandenburg Gate in the days of the wall, it was very strange to see people casually strolling through from Unter den Linden to the Tiergarten.		The sign is also visible in the 1982 picture. By 1997, the DDR border post was being dismantled, while developers were busy filling in the cleared 'death strip' that had cut such an ugly gash through the city.		Once the busiest city square in Europe, Potsdamer Platz was largely destroyed in World War II, then completely razed to the ground in the 1960s to form part of the No Man's Land immediately behind the wall. By 1997, it was one massive building site, complete with viewing platforms provided by the developers!