Berlin has a reputation for being intense, which is fair enough given its history, but the city on a sunny afternoon is mostly just people eating currywurst in the extensive parks and arguing about whether the weather will change. It is a place that wears its weight lightly, and that is exactly why it works as a holiday.

The obvious starting point is the Brandenburg Gate, partly because you have seen it on every documentary ever made, and partly because it genuinely stops you in your tracks. Standing there at the end of Unter den Linden, it is smaller than you expect and more imposing at the same time, which is a trick only really good architecture can pull off. The surrounding area is tourist-heavy, sure, but wander a few streets east and you hit the Holocaust Memorial, a grid of concrete stelae that is deeply affecting without being preachy. Kids play hide and seek in it while adults stand quietly in the middle. Berlin lets those two things happen at once, and somehow it does not feel disrespectful. It feels honest.

You cannot really do Berlin without confronting the Wall, or what is left of it. The East Side Gallery is the famous stretch, covered in murals that range from genuinely moving to slightly dated, but the walk along it is worth it for the river views alone. More interesting, in a quieter way, are the little fragments you stumble across in random neighborhoods, marked by small plaques and easy to miss if you are not looking. The city has not hidden its scars, but it has not turned them into a theme park either. It is a difficult balance, and Berlin mostly gets it right.

Museum Island sounds like something a child would invent, and in a way it is exactly that wonderful. Five museums crammed onto a spit of land in the Spree, including the Pergamon with its massive reconstructed gates that make you feel roughly ant-sized. The Neues Museum houses the bust of Nefertiti, who frankly looks bored of the attention after all these years. You could spend three days here and still not see everything, so most people do the sensible thing and pick one or two, then go sit on the riverbank with an ice cream.

Where Berlin really comes alive is in its neighborhoods. Kreuzberg on a Sunday is a masterclass in not giving a damn what anyone thinks. The street art is everywhere, not in a curated way but in a "someone climbed up there at 3am" way. The Turkish markets along the canal smell of grilled meat and fresh bread, and the cafes are full of people working on novels they will never finish. Friedrichshain offers a slightly grittier version of the same energy, with clubs that open on Friday and close on Monday, though if you are on holiday you might prefer to just observe that from a safe distance and get a good night's sleep.

Accommodation in Berlin is a mixed bag in the best possible sense. You can stay in a grand old hotel near the Ku'damm if you want chandeliers and slightly judgmental concierges, or you can rent a flat in Prenzlauer Berg where the owner leaves you a handwritten note and a bottle of local beer. Hostels are plentiful and generally excellent, because Berlin learned long ago that backpackers are just future currywurst enthusiasts. Prices are reasonable compared to London or Paris, though they have crept up in recent years. The sweet spot is probably a mid-range place in Mitte or Charlottenburg, clean and efficient with breakfast that involves too many types of cheese.

What sticks with you, though, is the architecture and the street life colliding in real time. You will be looking up at some ornate 19th-century facade, all cherubs and sandstone, and then notice the ground floor is a kebab shop blasting techno. The new buildings rise in glass and steel next to bullet-scarred stone, and nobody seems to find this strange. It is a city that rebuilt itself without agreeing on what it should look like, and the result is gloriously messy. People from more orderly places sometimes find Berlin exhausting. I think that is the point. It does not tidy itself up for visitors. It just keeps moving, keeps changing, keeps serving surprisingly good coffee at 11pm. You leave feeling like you have been somewhere that is actually alive, not just performing life for tourists. That is rarer than it should be.