Steeped in history, rich in culture, and awake all night long: breathtaking Berlin is the city that keeps getting better. Since its infamous Wall fell, Berlin’s creativity has flourished, with art galleries, bars, theatres, and iconic architecture springing up all over the formerly Soviet-era cityscape.

Legendary history lurks around every corner in Berlin, so join a walking tour to take in some of the city’s fascinating past, awe-inspiring architecture and insider anecdotes (and for those who prefer pedaling to pedestrianism , there are also plenty of bike tours on offer). Culture vultures will never go hungry for mind-food in Berlin, with some 600 galleries and 175 museums to savour across the city.

Thanks to retail-revering lawmakers, Berlin’s shopping hours are unrestricted (in practice, most shops are open until at least 8pm, the big shops until 9 or 10pm). To sample some of the city’s most exclusive shopping, hit up-market Friedrichstraße. Europe’s biggest department store KaDeWe at Wittenbergplatz is a charming must-see (and the sixth-floor food hall is the perfect place for peckish shoppers). If you’re hankering after some hot local design, Scheunenviertel and Prenzlauer Berg sell the best from Berlin’s fashion-makers.

With culinary offerings as diverse as its inhabitants, Berlin has food to whet anyone’s appetite, serving up everything from street-sold currywurst (sliced sausage slathered in curry sauce: a must-try) to Michelin-starred fine dining. One of our favourite spots to soak up the Berlin sunshine is Café am Neuen See, a cosy little café with lake views in the heart of the Tiergarten. For a more elaborate affair, treat yourself to a 30-course masterpiece at Cinco, in Das Stue hotel, where Paco Pérez proves why he has four Michelin stars up his chef’s whites.

With hip new bars popping up on every corner, Berlin has no shortage of places to find a thirst-quenching tipple. Drink in a German beer and spectacular skyline views on the roof terrace of Smith-approved Soho House Berlin. Or for cocktails, fur and feathers, hit Das Stue’s cosy hotel bar, overlooking the ostrich area of Berlin zoo. Prost!

Slumber in style, savour an award-winning meal, and spy on the animals at boutique hotel Das Stue next to the Berlin zoo. Constructed by Johann Emil Schaudt, the man behind famous KaDeWe, Das Stue’s grand building was once the elegant residence of the Danish Embassy. Imposing spaces such as the hotel’s vast entrance and three-storey library are enlivened with playful nods to the beastly neighbours (look out for the smiling crocodile greeting you in the main lobby, and the apes hanging out in the hotel bar). The Casual restaurant dishes up mouthwatering Mediterranean cuisine, including tapas, and at the end of a long day’s sightseeing, the sparkling Susanne Kaufmann Spa will massage away pavement-pounding aches and pains.

Our favourite room, Room 503, is a drop-dead gorgeous corner room on the top floor overlooking the courtyard and the zoo. If you prefer a park view from your own terrace, book 504 instead: it’s the same category and has a bath tub that spies on the leafy green Tiergarten.

If you want to wake up in a Smith hotel instead of just reading about them, visit Mr & Mrs Smith’s collection of boutique hotels, or call the expert Travel Team on 1300-89-66-27. Book through Smith for exclusive extras at stays, including an early check-in and late check-out at Das Stue.

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We had our sights on French artist Clement Briend when he projected a hell lot of faces on trees for his Cambodian Trees project. Well, we are just as intrigued by his Berlin series. Here, he projected images of the city landscape in a much more intimate settings: people’s homes. In a way the projections appear to be a physical manifestation of their dwellers’ perceptions and expectations of the city.

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Nhow is Europes first music hotel. This gem is located in the center pf Berlin and features two music studios. This is the place to stay if you want to do some recording, collaboration, or just soak up some inspiration.

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The world’s leading festival of contemporary character culture, Pictoplasma kicks off today for three days of inspiring talks, screenings and more. It all happens in Berlin and runs until April 13.

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These gorgeous photorealist paintings by Moki deserve a second look. And then a third and fourth. The Berlin-based artist specializes in camouflaging people into breathtaking, northern landscapes. Rugged mountains, untouched rivers and the like have human elements cleverly woven into each image. My favorite is the mountain range. It took a moment to recognize the toes poking out from under the “blanket” of foliage. Be sure to look at her website. The home page is quite a surprise!

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If you live in Berlin, you’re lucky. I like youth against establishment, I like defacing things, especially with moustaches. However, Vermibus, an artist and fast thinker from Berlin, has taken it to the next level. Do yourself a favor and go to Berlin.

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Anke makes clothes from another planet. I love her designs. Her pullovers are your best friend for the Berlin winter. Yes, it gets freakin’ cold here, so you want to be packed in wool.

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Posters of Berlin is a tumblr showcasing posters and art found in the streets of the German capital. Some of the featured works are commercial, others are just meant to make the viewer hesitate and think. All of them provide a great visual footprint of the unique cultural scene of one of my favourite cities.

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Self-taught Berlin-based photographer Matthias Heiderich recently showed an exhibition of his works at Gallery Carte Blanche in California. He powerfully captures both West Berlin and East Berlin architecture in a way that is just too poetic for words.

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Scottish-born Berliner Rudi Zygadlo’s music is the sound of a smashed ballerina box that’s been patched up by a producer of experimental electronica. Tragicomedies reflects a maturation of what can soberly be called the post-dubstep sound. Zygadlo’s second album demonstrates the genre no longer needs to cling to the novelty of obnoxious and overblown electronic instrumentation; a novelty that unfortunately mainstream producers are yet to tire of. Zygadlo’s baroque piano progressions are integrated into fractured time signatures, and electronic production is applied with discretion. It’s a pretty perfect record; comparable with ease to the work of pop-rock extremophile St Vincent. Melpomene, Russian Dolls, and Catharine are the standouts if you’re pressed for time; although longtime listeners will recognise Catharine from the earlier Achtung EP.

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Northern lights, strobe lights, fairy lights; aren’t lights just the best? From October 10-21, you can see lights in all their illuminated glory in Berlin during the annual Festival of Lights. Taking the whole light show craze thing to the next level, the entire city will be lit up like Christmas: from park benches to churches, bridges and trees. The 12 days will open and close with ceremonies, and are filled in between with other arts and cultural events, live jazz and shopping sales. You can choose to view the extravaganza by bus, boat, balloon or (wait for it …) Segway. All in all, a splendid reason to visit Berlin.

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Berlin has long had the reputation for being uber cool; think The Metropol, the huge cathedral-like cinema which Dario Argento used to film his nightmarish horror films. Now, courtesy of The Michelberger Hotel, there’s an uber cool place to hang out when in the city. More of a collective experience than an hotel, the Michelberger is also a graphic design studio where their ‘crew of space cadets’ make many of the objects featured in the building. Check out its amazing website graphics.

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The famed Tacheles art squat, a decrepit, decaying structure when it was first take over, nearly twenty years ago, has been closed and its occupants evicted by police this week. The closure signals not just the end of a vibrant, subversive era in Berlin’s famed art scene, but also a chilling precursor of further evictions across Europeas politicians, inner-city property developers and police collude to support the interests of finance and consumerism.

It comes hard on the heels of new laws which have seen over 20,000 evicted from squats all over Britain. Despite the more benign inclination of France’s new left-wing government under Francois Hollande, the occupants of Paris’s famous Belleville art squats must be watching these developments with disquiet. As the art critic,Jonathan Jones put it, in yesterday’s issue of The Guardian newspaper ”[Tacheles] was a meeting place for the city’s artists and subversives that had the atmosphere of some legendary, mythic avant garde venue of the past like the Cabaret Voltaire.” Now it’s gone for good.

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Wedding coming up? Want to class up your passive aggressive notes in the office kitchen? Or just have an appreciation for the beauty of the written word? Giuseppe Salerno is an Italian, Berlin-based calligrapher whose versatility and passion for the written word has kept him in constant demand. Salerno runs occasion workshops in Berlin, in English, for under $50, including all the tools to get you started. Don’t pass up the chance to learn directly from a true virtuoso of the form.

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I saw this brilliant painter’s work on a visit to an art academy in Berlin. In a slightly out of focus range of blues, blacks, greys, and scarce brights, her work is akin to a child’s nightmare viewed peripherally. Each painting has a narrative and distinct characters, some of which I’d like to get to know, most of which I’d avoid at all costs. Merry-go-rounds, tribal gatherings, and covert rape scenes abound. She simultaneously inspires and terrifies.

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Milosh is a very talented singer, photographer and filmmaker. I’m a fan of his albums, but nothing prepared me for his most recent musical contribution to the world: a private serenade to his girlfriend, actress Alexa Nikolas. The simplicity of this moment is what makes it so poignant: one man’s voice, his love, and the natural reverberation of their surroundings.

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Bored of the too-easy point/click way we find new music, I decided to make my own songs harder and more interesting to get hold of. I spent a year hiding CDs with my music on in cities around the world (with a little help from friends). I filmed the whole thing, including the responses I got, and edited it to a song from my new EP, Realityicide.

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We first told you about Max Zorn in July this year when his fresh tape-art works were just in Amsterdam. Tinkering with nothing more than an exacto knife, some packing tape and plastic sheets, it takes wrapping his work around street lamps to see the pieces in all their glory as the complex layers of slicing and shading formations take their full effect.

To show exactly how he does what he does, he’s just recently released this superb time-lapse video. To date, he’s spread the tape love around the globe with his stickers and full scale art pieces hanging around the likes of Toronto, Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg and is spreading the tape love with every passing week.

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German artist Olaf Hajek’s work will be featured in a solo show at Berlin’s exclusive Werft 2 project space on November 10. The exhibition will include a combination of new work, as well as others from worldwide exhibitions, including his recent show in South Africa.

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The Berlin Monsterkabinett fuses machine art and performance. A tour of the amazing work of the Dead Chickens Artist Group, the permanent evolving exhibition is housed in underground galleries at Haus Schwarzenberg: one of the few un-renovated courtyards surviving in the Hackescher Markt district. Allow a trusted guide to lead you into the bizarre and labyrinthine world of the Monsterkabinett, where monstrous yet loveble creatures — in turn terrifying, tragic and comical — dance and sing to a compelling rhythm.

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