A couple of weekends ago, on a rare warm spring day, it was just about possible to forget that the pandemic had ever visited Berlin. On the shores of Krumme Lanke, one of the lakes on the city’s western fringe, hardened naturists fought an irritable turf war with teenagers blasting dismal German rap out of their Bluetooth speakers. Unsmiling public-order officials patrolled, dishing out fines to anyone enterprising enough to have hopped over the fence in search of a spot by the water. An old lady with a decrepit supermarket trolley rooted through the bins for empty beer bottles so she could reclaim the deposits. It has been a long time since the German capital came this close to looking like its old self —

Source: The Times May 20, 2021 15:56 UTC