Berlin's warm Spring breezes blow in flocks of amateur photographers. They descend on the city, pop off their lenscaps & snap pics from one end of town to the other. By days the visiting shutterbugs search for the perfect perspective on Berlin's architectural icons, and by night their tripods pop up faster than mushrooms after a Spring rain.

Cycling along Unter den Linden becomes dangerous business as I find myself swerving between the camera buffs blinded by their viewfinders and their subjects, smiling & waving as they walk backwards into traffic. In addition to the migratory minicam operators we also have a growing population of professional photographers, who ply their trade as part of Berlin's burgeoning creative class.

The ever multiplying number of music, film & fashion festivals guarantee that there is always someone somewhere in need of a talented lensman (or lenswoman) to document the action. Even I've been known to whip out the pocket camera now and then to snap a quick pic for Momondo's stylish cityhoppers.

Meanwhile, all this focusing, filtering & film development hasn't escaped notice by Berlin's art mavens. So, in addition to our world famous Helmut Newton Foundation / Museum of Photography, we now have numerous smaller galleries showing the work of established & amateur photographers. If you're a camera clutching connoisseur, a practicing paparazzi or just looking for large format prints to lug home as souvenirs of your Berlin vacation, you'll want to find your way to one of these local shot spots:

April 29 is the International Dance Day. At Momondo we totally support a day dedicated to dancing and we've decided to celebrate the day too. Therefore we’ve asked our city bloggers to come up with their favourite spots to go and dance or watch others do it. So put on your boogie shoes and let our bloggers guide you through the best dance spots in Cairo, New York, London, Paris and Stockholm.

Let's dance #3: Berlin

Bad girl Anita Berber

Modern Dance has been a part of Berlin's cultural landscape ever since its beginnings in the early 20th century. As a rebellion against the formal strictures of Classical Ballet and a companion to the Expressionism taking hold in the realms of cinema and theatre Modern Dance found enthusiastic support in a Weimar-era Berlin hungry for new sensations. Pioneers such as Mary Wigman, Valeska Gert and Berlin's legendary bad girl Anita Berber revolutionized and scandalized as they developed a new language of dance and spatial dynamics.

Copyright: German Press Agency

In modern times dance continues to fascinate Berliners - a week long performance by dance company Sasha Waltz & Guests to inaugurate the renovated Neues Museum sold out within minutes and local media breathlessly recounted every awkward headdress and bent knee. 

While I can't say I've extensive experience or understanding of dance in all its variety, it's difficult to spend much time in Berlin without eventually being invited out to a dance performance, and so I've spent more than a few evenings marvelling at the creativity and flexibility of a troupe of attractive artistes.

If you're traveling to Berlin and hoping to take in some of the local dance talent, waltz into one of the the following theaters, you're sure to find something to put a spring back into your step.

Photo: Doratagold

Berlin's position as Germany's capital has been the source of much difficulty down the decades, as every new regime attempts to remake the city after its own ideological design. The 19th century Kaisers with their proliferating palaces and Hitler & Speer's grotesque 'Germania' - a megalomaniacal reimagining of Berlin in the style of fascist monumentalism, are but two examples of the compulsion which seizes those who take up the reins of power. After WWII Berlin saw another episode of this regime rebuilding when the East German authorities, following cues from Moscow, decided to clear away acres of war-ruined 19th century housing and build a tribute to their new dictatorship of the proletariat.

To be fair, the construction was necessary measure to provide housing for Berlin’s bombed out citizens and similar projects were undertaken in the city’s western sectors.  But it was here, on the newly christened Stalinallee (renamed Karl-Marx-Allee in 1961), that East Germany’s propaganda machinery took full advantage of the reconstruction in an attempt to demonstrate the superiority of the young socialist regime.

Beginning at Strausberger Platz, home to a fine bust of Karl Marx, down to the twin domes of Frankfurter Tor and back, I walked the wide boulevard this past weekend, taken with the fanciful eight storey 'worker’s palaces', shining examples of Stalinist socialist classicism.

Photo: Jon Åslund

Berlin has almost as many independent cinemas as it does saunas, and, though they’re not as warm as a Finnish hotbox and the nudity is (usually) only on screen, they do offer an extensive and diverse film program to help escape the autumn gloom. While the highlight of the filmgoing season is February’s Berlinale, rarely a week goes by here without a film festival or retrospective being screened somewhere around town. From arthouse & avant garde cinema to B-movies and cult classics there is something to suit every taste and, unlike the sauna, a movie theatre has the distinct advantage of being very, very dark, so no one will notice if you’re still working off those extra helpings of holiday cheer.

If you’re in Berlin and want to get out of the house without worrying about what you are - or aren’t - wearing, start by checking out the programs at these cinemas, where you’ll find most of the films shown in their original language versions, with or without subtitles.

Part of the Book Burning Memorial on Bebelplatz Photo: Chan'r

Being a book lover can be a burden when combined with a love for travel - literally! My insatiable lust for those finely bound objects of desire takes up not only precious room in my luggage, as I seem unable to board a plane or train without a half dozen readables tucked into my bags, but also a good portion of my travel budget, since every new destination offers countless opportunities to browse the local bookshops and secondhand shops. Embarassed as I am to admit it, I've now taken to bringing along an empty suitcase when I travel to a new city, in anticipation of all my new prizes.

Even here at home in Berlin I am not safe from this weakness for the written word. The Germans are notoriously literate (remember the Gutenberg Bible?), and in the years since reunification Berlin has once again grown to be a center of European culture and contemporary art. One can't walk fifty meters in any direction without coming across the windows of a bookstore whispering of the fascinating finds which may be waiting inside. As my apartment is relatively small, I try to keep my library pared down to manageable proportions by selling or giving away books once I am finished with them. Still I still accumulate books faster than I can read them and, since I long ago ran out of shelfspace, I am slowly being buried beneath thick volumes of Berlin history, psychoanalytic film theory, and paranoiac-critical surveys of art history.

A bittersweet malady this craving for life between the covers and, since misery loves company, I've compiled a short list of some of Berlin's best book pushers for visiting bibliofiends.