By far the best known of Berlin’s boulevards, Unter den Linden runs between the Brandenburg Gate and the former Royal Palace (currently being rebuilt). Its name, which translates as “beneath the lime trees,” comes from “Great Elector” Friedrich Wilhelm, who in the 17th century lined the route to what were his hunting grounds in the Tiergarten with lime trees. The current ones were planted postwar since Hitler hacked the originals down to make way for swastika-bearing flagpoles. Today the renovated avenue is a busy multilane road with car showrooms and slightly overpriced cafés, but there’s plenty of historical interest, too: pretty Bebelplatz, where the Nazis infamously burned 20,000 books, as well as the excellent German History Museum and the adjacent neoclassical Neue Wache, a war memorial.
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Unter den Linden
By far the best known of Berlin’s boulevards, Unter den Linden runs between the Brandenburg Gate and the former Royal Palace (currently being rebuilt). Its name, which translates as “beneath the lime trees,” comes from “Great Elector” Friedrich Wilhelm, who in the 17th century lined the route to what were his hunting grounds in the Tiergarten with lime trees. The current ones were planted postwar since Hitler hacked the originals down to make way for swastika-bearing flagpoles. Today the renovated avenue is a busy multilane road with car showrooms and slightly overpriced cafés, but there’s plenty of historical interest, too: pretty Bebelplatz, where the Nazis infamously burned 20,000 books, as well as the excellent German History Museum and the adjacent neoclassical Neue Wache, a war memorial.
