Following my post on Lusitania, here is Cottbus, the historic German capital of this mining region.

We’re there very close to the actual Polish border, about 100 kilometres from Berlin. Why go there? For at least five reasons.

First, its historic city centre.

Its brick architecture is a legacy of its industrial past:

Its old-fashioned, GDR-era look:

Its magnificent theatre in Art Nouveau style (Jugendstyl), an exceptional building:

For its contemporary architecture, here its university:

And finally, there is a place in Berlin -Kottbusser Tor- called Kotti, the Cottbus gate, built in the 60s and 70s, which I recommend to those who spend some time in Berlin. Not what you would expect from a tourist site, but certainly a good picture of the architecture of the large housing estates of that time.