Arrived in Berlin this morning. An amazing city with history oozing from every flagstone. Started with the grimmest episode in the history of the country and visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in the centre of the city. It's a strange structure, 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", one for each page of the Talmud arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. Underneath is a exhibition on the holocaust which brings home the enormity of the crime, not by stating statistics and history, but by telling the individual stories of many who were murdered in the barbaric act of genocide. Pictures of happy contented families enjoying life in the early part of the century are next to documentation of how the families were ripped apart as the terror overcame Europe with parents never seeing their children again and stories like the mother who pleaded with a guard for her son to be excused the work camps, not realising that the alternative was instant death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The centre only opened in 2005 and its good that such a powerful memorial should be situated so near to wear the horrendous plan was conceived and implemented.

Took the lift up to the top of the Reichstag for a wonderful view. The old structure is topped with a magnificent glass dome and you can walk up the inside to get views right over the city. The Berlin Wall ran just behind the building, but all that's left now is a brick path marking the location of the structure. It is difficult to imagine how the city must have looked just 21 years ago when the wall still existed. Such a small duration of time but a city changed. No longer divided, open where once there were only restrictions. Nothing much is left except for a few remnants and the crosses marking the deaths of so many who lost their lives trying to traverse the gap that divided the world into East and West.