Berlin for The Romantics: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Brecht and Weigel under a plain boulder, Hegel beside Fichte, Schinkel under his own design; a quiet half-hour among the lindens before the theatre.

A Brecht or Heiner Müller production in the theatre Brecht ran, from the cheap upper tier where the gilt is flaking.

Next door to the theatre and open late, tarte flambée and a cold Riesling at a window on the black Spree.

A two-minute crossing to Friedrich Wilhelm II's sham-ruin castle, built for his mistress, where peacocks scream in the oaks.

The painter's summer house and the garden he painted for thirty years, birches and a lawn to the lake; take the terrace café for an hour.

A Russian log house of 1819, a king's gift to his daughter, with a terrace over the Havel; stay for the last ferry light.

Schinkel's brick church holding the National Gallery's nineteenth-century marble, Schadow's two princesses arm in arm.

Frederick's rococo rooms in the Neuer Flügel, then the long garden to the carp pond as the lamps come on along the paths.

East Prussian cooking in a lace-curtained room the family keeps as it was: Königsberger Klopse, a glass of Pillkaller, and no hurry.

270 steps to the walkway around the dome, Museum Island and the Spree below; a last view before the suitcases.

Stüler's temple on a plinth, with Caspar David Friedrich's couples looking at the moon and Menzel's balcony room upstairs.

Baumkuchen and coffee in a Tiergarten pastry house that has been baking since 1852, with soup if you want lunch, before the train to the airport.