Celebrating the Fall of the Berlin Wall:   

Perfect weather graced Berlin this weekend as Germany's capital celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Fall of the Wall. Here's a view along Bornholmer Straße from what was once West Berlin, looking over a bridge which had been made into a checkpoint by the communist dictatorship that governed East Germany:

In the distance, seen here, is Berlin's iconic television tower, built by the communists to help scramble signals from the likes of Radio Free Europe and to broadcast propaganda to a captive audience.

People Saturday streamed between key points of the Wall's former path where information boards recounted the monumental events of November 9, 1989 when a peaceful revolution led to the border's opening after 28 years.

Celebrations actually began a week ago with the positioning of 8,000 illuminated white balloons pegged to the ground along a 15-kilometre stretch. While only making up a small portion of The Wall's total 96-mile length, the lit balloons provided a dramatic demonstration of where The Wall once stood.

A crowd that including what is believed to be hundreds of thousands of visitors admired some of the gently swaying white balloons pegged to the ground in a light installation winding 15 kilometres along the Wall's route.

At Potsdamer Platz, once cleaved in two by the detested Berlin Wall and now a bustling junction with shiny modern tower blocks, a small crowd watched East German demonstrators in video images chant: "We are the people!".

"I cried. It was so dramatic," Italian tourist Juliane Pellegrini, 60, a school headmistress from South Tyrol, recalled, saying she had followed events on television the fateful night the Wall came down.

Twenty-five years later in the city where it took place, she said she felt emotional all over again. "It's the history of central Europe."

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, said in her weekly podcast Saturday that the reunified capital of Berlin had become "almost a symbol of Europe's unification after the Cold War".

The weekend observances have been made all the more special by a nearly full moon and clear skies.

The festivities are being held under the banner "Courage for Freedom" and participants include the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, whose "perestroika" and "glasnost" reforms helped pave the way for the Wall's fall after 28 years.

Gorbachev and former Polish president and freedom icon Lech Walesa, 71, are among those due on Sunday at the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German unity, for entertainment to include rock music and fireworks.