In the heart of one of Europe’s noisiest cities lies a forest. Not a city park with benches and flowerbeds, but 210 hectares of ancient woodland stretching between the Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz and the Victory Column. This is the Tiergarten.

The Tiergarten was once the hunting and recreational grounds of the Prussian Electors. Deer, wild boar, royal hunting parties. During the Second World War, it was almost completely cleared of trees, and the people of Berlin burned the timber during one of the coldest post-war winters. What stands there today was largely replanted in the 1950s. You wouldn’t know it to look at it.

Nowadays, joggers do their laps here in the mornings, tourists at midday, and dogs and their owners in the evenings. Straße des 17. Juni cuts the park in two, but once you turn off the main path, you feel as though you’ve left the city behind.

Five minutes from the Reichstag. Ten from Potsdamer Platz. And yet it’s quiet.

Photo credits: Adam Vradenburg via unsplash