In Berlin, festivities are getting underway in memory of the fall of the Berlin Wall, twenty years ago on Monday. The German capital is flooded with foreign tourists, and nearly all the city’s hotels are fully booked.

Where the wall that divided Berlin once stood, the first of 136 planned monuments has been erected in memory of East Germans shot dead while attempting to flee to the west.

Chancellor Angela Merkel described 9 November 1989 as the happiest day of her life. On Sunday afternoon she will open a private museum on the history of the Glienicker bridge, where East and West exchanged captured spies during the Cold War. Former soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev will also attend the opening.

On Monday, the anniversary itself, a symbolic Berlin Wall will again be demolished. It is made of 1000 giant dominos, more than two metres tall. The ceremony will be attended by heads of state and leaders of all the European Union member countries, as well as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.