An American’s dreamy notions about European train travel are dispelled by Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof, the city’s huge new central station completed in 2006.  The great glass shed, just across the River Spree from the capitol buildings, is a nexus for both local and long distance lines.  But it offers no public space.  There’s no central hall, and the main entrance leads you right out into the street.  (Landscaping, anyone?)  The Hauptbahnhof is basically a bunch of train tracks running through a shopping mall.

On a very hot day I took refuge outside along the east side of building.  There were cascading steps in the shade, and groups of locals were sitting, eating lunch and talking.  From here I could look across the water and see the dome of the Reichstag floating in the distance.  The first time I visited Berlin, fifteen years ago, the Reichstag was covered in scaffolding.  Then the last time I visited Berlin, three years ago, I walked up Norman Foster’s great glass dome and wondered what precisely I was supposed to feel when I reached the top; it was an empty, pretty spectacle.  From the vantage of these shady steps the Reichstag felt much more comfortable, and so did the train station.