Next stop...

"Oh, Tommy, quick! Look at that! We don't have anything like that back home do we?" exclaimed a mother to her young son as the family made its way across the plaza at the rear of Berlin's central station prior to navigating the confusion of the bus line.

Sitting on the steps eating a currywurst and waiting for some friends, this snatch of overheard conversation made me smile. The woman was referring to the giant iron-horse-in-a-ring statue which stands proud at the top of the staircase, silently greeting passengers at the north entrance of the station.

It was quaint that she saw fit to point it out. I've seen it hundreds of times, but it always seemed to me to be a piece of faux culture, a pretence at art dumped outside an otherwise characterless building. For her to have pointed it out with the same level of excitement and reverence as if she were stood in front of the "Mona Lisa" left me wondering what sort of barren wilderness the family came from.

But this is something you see all the time at Berlin's vast central station, or Hauptbahnhof; it's easy for me to be blasé and to hare around the never-ending walkways and escalators, focused only on where I need to be and utterly impatient to the groups of gawking tourists wandering around with their eyes cast skyward, their mouths gaping and their suitcases blocking the way.

While the station may be ever so slightly confusing, it is undoubtedly an impressive sight and despite its labyrinthine qualities, it's the suitably impressive welcome to Berlin for rail travelers that the city lacked for so long.

Double take Berlin

Berlin's unique history as a divided city has thrown up many anomalies over the years given that it was, for 40-odd years, two cities side by side. This would explain, for example, its two distinct shopping miles; Ku'damm in the West and Friedrichstrasse in the East. It had two airports; Tegel servicing the West and Schönefeld flying practically no one from the German Democratic Republic to Eastern Bloc countries they didn't really want to visit in the first place.

Naturally, East and West Berlin were serviced by two totally different central rail stations. Citizens of the GDR arrived and departed the Soviet zone from Berlin-Ostbahnhof, a mere 200 meters from the Wall which divided their city.

Rail passengers in the West traveled from Zoologischer Garten, which became infamous in the 1970s as a popular hangout for heroin addicts as popularized in the hit film "Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo" (Us Kids from Zoo Station). Once the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, City West's other main rail terminus, Lehrter Stadtbahnhof, found itself marooned close to the border in a desolate part of town and its significance as a major interchange diminished.

It was after reunification in 1990 that discussion began regarding Berlin's need for a main, centralized railway station, a suitably impressive interchange point for travelers from all over the world which would provide a grand welcome to a bright, shiny new city.

Whirr in a maze

Despite its status as a listed building, the Lehrter Stadtbahnhof, built in 1882, was razed to make way for the all-new Berlin Hauptbahnhof. Construction began in 1995, estimated costs for the project were 700 million euros, though the station finally cost Berlin 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) and it threw open its doors in a glittering opening ceremony presided over by Chancellor Angela Merkel in May 2006.

Boasting some 40,000 square meters (430,000 square feet) of retail space, the Hauptbahnhof is a maze of walkways, staircases and platforms. Futuristic, tube-like elevators shoot passengers up and down between the upper and lower platforms, hundreds stand docile on cross-cutting escalators like a scene from Fritz Lang's epic silent picture "Metropolis" while the vast, concrete halls of the station ring with muffled announcements, the constant chime of train doors about to close and the ever-present hum of the underground, trams or regional trains pulling away to heaven knows where.

It's a buzzing hive of activity which has bizarrely transformed itself from mere train station to tourism highlight in its five short years of operation. The outdoor stairways to the rear and side of the station are often crammed with people - who knows whether they're departing or have just arrived - sitting around, drinking coffee and enjoying the sun. Likewise the vast plaza out front with views of the German parliament building is also a popular hang-out, with large groups of people lounging around in the middle of a hundred or so suitcases.

And if navigating your way through the endless walkways of the station proves too much, the area around Hauptbahnhof has taken on an identity all of its own. The banks of the River Spree in the immediate vicinity are now home to half a dozen beach bars, complete with obligatory sand, deckchairs and umbrellas, adding a tropical touch to what would otherwise be the traditional wasteland-around-the-train-station arrangement.

Optional travel

While in many ways the city may still be architecturally slashed down the middle - and older generations of Berliners may still make the distinction between East and West - more and more traces of its history as two separate entities are being erased. The Hauptbahnhof, it seems, is a further step towards Berlin stepping out of the shadows of its difficult past and reconfirming its status as a modern European capital.

"I think it's quite appropriate that a city which is still essentially quite new, should have a brand new central station to drive that message home," said one gentleman standing at the currywurst stand. Where was this wise chap about to travel to? As it turned out, nowhere.

"I work nearby," he added, "I've just popped in here for lunch and an hour of people watching."

Since Gavin Blackburn's bike was stolen, he's involuntarily seen much more of Berlin Hauptbahnhof in the last few weeks.

Editor: Kate Bowen