Berlin

Berlin doesn't hide its scars; it frames them, turns them into memorials, paints them onto a surviving stretch of wall.

This is a city of voids and reinventions, where a death strip became a park and a power station became a temple of techno. Street art covers Kreuzberg, the museums island themselves in the Spree, and the nightlife genuinely never stops.

It's poor, sprawling, gloriously unfinished and proud of being unbeautiful on a continent of pretty capitals.

Eat a currywurst at 4am, a döner from a Turkish grandmother's stall, and drink wherever the night drops you.