Photo: BoyWithCigar

As long anyone can remember, Berlin's been a city of dark and seductive glamour, the mere mention of its name bringing on visions of vice, abandon and sensual indulgence. The legendary late night extravagances of the Weimar era city were immortalized by Christopher Isherwood in the stories which would later become the film Cabaret, which established the city's reputation as Babylon on the Spree. The Golden Twenties ended with a political catastrophe but, despite twelve years in power and their vain attempts to clamp down on Berlin's libertinism, the Nazi's would leave little more behind than new drag for the already packed closets of the city's uniform fetishists. Later, during its years of post-war division the walled city became a magnet for sexual adventurers, a concrete cage serving the carnal appetites of pleasure seekers from around the world.

Today Berlin is a victim of its own success, the sexual liberation and libertinism pioneered here can now be found in almost every European city, and visitors to the German capital are more likely to be patronizing its modern art, music and fashion scenes rather than its more prurient pleasures. But those seeking a bit of erotic adventure won't have to venture far from the banks of the Spree to find a bit of the Babylon that made the city a libidinous legend. Here are few spots to start with: