Mitte is the old heart of Berlin and, since reunification, its showpiece. This is where the city packs most of its famous sights — Museum Island, the Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden, the Reichstag, the Holocaust Memorial — into a dense strip between the Spree and the Tiergarten. Before the Wall came down, much of it was in East Berlin and crumbling; now it is immaculate, expensive, and touristy, but still one of the great walking districts in Europe.
Beyond the monuments, Mitte has two quite different sides. South of Unter den Linden, the area around the rebuilt Gendarmenmarkt and Friedrichstraße is formal, commercial, and full of glass office blocks. North of the river, in the old Jewish quarter around the Hackescher Markt and Oranienburger Straße, the streets are tighter and the mood is closer to what brought artists to Mitte in the 1990s: inner courtyards (Höfe), independent galleries, boutique hotels in restored Gründerzeit buildings, and a still-lively bar scene. The New Synagogue's gilded dome rises above Oranienburger Straße, a reminder of the district's pre-war community.
For cafés and wandering, the Scheunenviertel — Auguststraße, Tucholskystraße, and the lanes around Rosenthaler Platz — remains the best part of Mitte. The Hackesche Höfe with its eight interconnecting art-nouveau courtyards is worth the detour. Stay late enough and you'll still find the odd club going at dawn, though the serious nightlife has long since moved east to Friedrichshain and south to Kreuzberg.