Berlin #4: Smithfield's 'Checkpoint Charlie'

Back in 1965, Smithfield Square and other parts of the northside of Dublin were transformed into Berlin, to much excitement and hoopla.

Richard Burton was in town - with Liz Taylor in tow - to film The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

Berlin #3: the 'real' Checkpoint Charlie

So I'm in Berlin, doing research for book #4. I have vowed not to "do" Checkpoint Charlie.

Waste of time. Give it a miss. Sure hasn't it been done ("to death" I almost added, before thinking twice) in gazillions of films and spy novels and documentaries?

Berlin #2: Year Zero

Before my first research visit to Berlin I did some desk research, as you do. Tripadvisor, Google Streetview, the usual stuff. And YouTube. A lot of YouTube.

I wanted a rough visual idea of what Berlin must have been like at the end of WWII, and during the Cold War as a divided city. So I'd still be a superficial tourist, yet having a better idea of the city's layers of history.

Berlin #1: a city of layers

So there's this billboard at street level on Oranienstraße in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. Its posters have slowly built up on each other, layer upon layer upon layer, until the layers are about a foot thick.