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Joyce Matthews | Travel & Hidden Gems

@joycematthews_

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Helping you discover places worth the journey.
📍 Hidden gems
✈️ Scenic travel
💡 Inspiration
❤️ Berlin
🏠 Scotland
⬇️ Follow for your next adventure.

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You don’t expect to find THIS in Berlin…

From Straße des 17 Juni, look from the Brandenburg Gate over to the rooftop of the American Embassy. Zoom in.
And there you’ll see a statue of Ronald Reagan.

📍 A hidden piece of Cold War history.

#berlin #germany #ronaldreagan #americanembassy #coldwar taken in U.S. Embassy Berlin by @joycematthews_

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Berlin just hits different…

#berlin #germany #berlinlove #deutschland #visitberlin taken in Berlin, Deutschland by @joycematthews_

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🚇 Save this for your next Berlin trip!

Yes, there‘s a place in Berlin where the U-Bahn runs straight through a residential building. 😳🏠

It’s at Gleisdreieck, and it’s one of those wonderfully weird Berlin sights that most visitors never know about.

📍 Add it to your Berlin hidden-gems list — especially if you love unusual architecture, public transport or finding the places that don’t make it onto the standard tourist itinerary.

And once you know where to look, you’ll never see the Berlin U-Bahn quite the same way again. 😉

Would you want to live in a building with a train running through it? 🚇🏠

#berlin #germany #trains #trainspotter #architecture taken in U Gleisdreieck by @joycematthews_

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Thousands of people pass this ordinary Schöneberg apartment every single day completely unaware of its history.
In 1976, David Bowie was escaping the chaotic pressures of fame. He didn’t buy a luxury mansion—he moved into this unassuming Berlin flat.
He even shared it with his roommate, Iggy Pop.
Behind these windows, they completely reinvented music, creating iconic albums like Idiot and Lust for Life, and Bowie’s legendary Berlin Trilogy.
No guards, no velvet ropes. Just a quiet piece of rock history hiding in plain sight. 🇩🇪✨

📍 Hauptstraße 155

#berlin #germany #hiddengems #bowie #davidbowie taken in Berlin, Schöneberg, Hauptstr. 155 by @joycematthews_

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The Berlin Wall didn’t just split a city—it literally cut through three graveyards. 🪦

This is Liesenstraße, a hidden corner of Berlin where the Cold War death strip bulldozed hundreds of historic tombs just to build the border. You can still see a 30-meter stretch of the original concrete wall standing right on top of the cemetery walls today.

📍 Save this for your next trip to Berlin.

#berlinwall #berlinhistory #hiddengems #darktourism #berlin taken in Liesenstraße by @joycematthews_

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tiny, unexpected, very Berlin

A shrine to David Hasselhoff… and yes it’s really only this big 🤣

📍 @thecircus_berlin

#berlin #davidhasselhoff #shrine #travel #hiddengems taken in Berlin, Germany by @joycematthews_

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Did you know this iconic World Clock in Alexanderplatz has an East German Trabant car gear spinning inside it? Built in 1969, tracking 24 time zones on a rotating cylinder, it’s been Berlin’s ultimate link to the rest of the world for over 50 years. 🌍✈️

#berlin #germany #travel #hiddengems #clock taken in Weltzeituhr by @joycematthews_

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Berlin’s best-kept lunchtime secret… 🎶

FREE lunchtime concerts at the Berlin Philharmonic

@berlinphil
#berlin #germany #hiddengems #classicalmusic #free taken in Philharmonie Berlin by @joycematthews_

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Wait, let me wipe the camera … 👋 📸 … much better.
Found a hidden cupcake gem in Berlin 🧁✨
One for the cupcake lovers — and definitely worth adding to your Berlin food itinerary!

📍 Tigertörtchen
Chäusseestraße 60

@tigertoertchen

#berlin #germany #explore #cupcakes #foodie taken in tigertoertchen by @joycematthews_

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Berlin‘s most secretive building … and yes there’s a reason you can’t take photos inside.

This is the home of the civil and military foreign intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany. And as far as I know it’s the only intelligence service in the world which has a visitors centre.

Well worth a visit, and probably takes just over an hour to get round all the fascinating stories and profiles.

📍 BND Besucherzentrum
Chausseestraße 99A
Berlin

#intelligence #berlin #germany #bnd #hiddengems taken in BND-Besucherzentrum by @joycematthews_

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A visual love letter to Berlin’s U-Bahn system ❤️

#berlin #germany #trains #trainstation #love taken in Berlin, Deutschland by @joycematthews_

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The famous “Flesh Mural” on Bernauer Straße captures the raw reality of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall wasn’t just a political line, it felt like a violent cut straight through the living flesh of a city and its people. If you look closely at the grain of the meat, it forms the actual map of divided Berlin.

Skip the crowded tourist spots for an hour to walk down Bernauer Straße.
The surrounding streets still hold the echoes of the “Death Strip” that once ran right alongside them.

📍 Wolliner Straße
📍 Brunnen Straße
📍 Bernauer Straße
📍 Ackerstraße

#berlin #berlinwall #berlinwallmemorial #streetart #coldwar taken in Bernauer Straße by @joycematthews_

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