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| the Brandenburg Gate |
Perhaps no other city in the world wears its history on its sleeve quite like Berlin. Sure, the wall （柏林墙）isn't there any more, but Berlin is still very much divided: in the center of the city, there's a pretty neat segue （【音】继续）from the wealthy glitz（耀眼；炫目）of the west to newly developed central east Berlin. This area was quickly colonized1 by the trendy café-bar set in the early 90s and swift rebuilding has erased2 nearly all trace of the wall.
Before it came down, the wall was the most enduring icon3 （标志）of a nation's alienation4 （疏远；分离）. But it's not as if the city hadn't seen it all before. From the civic5 turmoil（骚动，混乱）of the Thirty Year War, to the devastating6 impact of the fire-bombing during WWII, Berlin has constantly been under siege （包围）or in a post-siege rebuilding phase. Even in the middle of trouble and strife7（冲突）, though, Berliners have known how to live it up（享受人生）.
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| Unter der Linden |
Berlin sits in the middle of the region known from medieval times （中世纪）as the Mark, and is surrounded by the new Bundesland (federal state) of Brandenburg. The city spills north and south of the Spree River which winds through some of the magnificent parkland that comprises （构成）a third of the municipal area. You can't really get lost within sight of the brooding （俯视的）and monstrous8 （高大的）Fernsehturm (TV Tower), a useful orientation9 （定位）point visible from most of central Berlin. Unter der Linden （菩提树下大街）, the fashionable avenue of aristocratic （有贵族气派的）old Berlin, extends from the Brandenburg Gate （勃兰登堡门）to Alexanderplatz （亚历山大广场）, once the heart of socialist10 Germany. Some of Berlin's finest museums are here, on Museumsinsel in the Spree, the original center of the metropolis11 （大都市）. West of the Brandenburg Gate, the boulevard runs through Tiergarten, a huge landscaped park. You may remember the Victory Column at its center from the Wim Wender's film Wings of Desire. The commercial center of west Berlin glitters just to the south.
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