The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. There are still some sections left, including the East Side Gallery, the monument at Bernauer Strasse and a section on Niederkirchner Strasse. A double line of bricks paved into the streets marks where the wall was throughout Berlin. While living in Berlin to research and write a book, I decided one day to follow those bricks and see where it would take me.

I started in Mitte, on a bicycle. It's amazing how much of the land that was in the no-man's land between the two walls is still undeveloped, even in the centre of Berlin. You can find the concrete bases of observation towers, the cables that electrified the security lights and shoulder high grass.

Throughout the city, I found long sections of what was the narrow patrol roads which have been integrated into the city scape as walking and cycle paths. There are a few watch towers remaining too, one which is surrounded by an apartment block and another out near Treptower Park.

In the north, much of the land that was once no-man's is being left completely unused, probably because no one can decide who owns it. Legal battles still rage over who is the rightful owner of property that was taken first by the Nazis and then by the Communists.

Berlin is a city that breathes history, and has the relics, monuments and bullet holes to prove it.