Berlin from up on high

"Please be careful!" says the toilet attendant as he watches small coins clatter into his saucer.

Getting up, he tends to his other task, security. Suspiciously, he watches a visitor leaning out with his arms outstretched from atop this Berlin landmark to take a picture downwards into the void.

"So far this year 14 cameras have gone crashing down to the bottom," the attendant warns, insisting he has "no idea" whether any of them landed on an unsuspecting passer-by.

His place of work is Panorama Point, at the top of the Kolhoff Tower on Potsdamer Platz in the heart of the German capital.

It boasts an unusual distinction: it's serviced by Europe's fastest lift, which hurtles upwards at 8.5 metres per second or more than 30 kilometres an hour.

The open-air viewing platforms 90 metres above the German capital are on the 24th and 25th floors.

Built in the style of US skyscrapers of the 1920s, the tower goes up another 10 metres to reach a full height of 101 metres.

Although surrounded by other soaring buildings on the rebuilt central square of the city, its a vantage from which many other points of interest can be seen – the 18th-century Brandenburg Gate, the 19th-century Victory Column and the official residence of the German president, Schloss Bellevue, dating to the late 18th century.

With the wind whistling around one's ears, the people and cars below look like miniatures. The descent takes just 20 seconds.

The trip up the Fersehturm on Alexander Platz – the television tower built to soar as a landmark over communist East Berlin – takes twice as long.

"Today weather conditions are a bit misty but you can still see 10 kilometres," the lift attendant says.

"We have arrived, enjoy the view," she calls as the lift reaches 203 metres above the city – the height of the viewing platform.

The gilded figure atop the Victory Column can be seen in the distance – itself a popular viewing point, although its 69 metres have to be ascended by stairs.

From the top of the television tower the trains passing through Berlin look like toys – so much so that small children reach out to try to grab them.

The nearby Hotel Park Inn, a new Berlin landmark, offers guests a roof terrace at 120 metres. Further away, Treptowers, also 120 metres high, is the city's tallest office block but it's not open to visitors.

These modern structures dwarf the city's pre-war buildings. The rotunda of the brick 1922 Borsig Tower to the northwest is just 60 metres up, although it is often described as the city's first tall building.

The viewing platform of the Funkturm, a radio transmission tower built in the style of Paris' Eiffel Tower, comes in at 124 metres.

Opened in 1926, it transmitted the world's first television broadcast in 1932.

Its restaurant at 52 metres can be reached by stairs but for safety reasons there are no stairs beyond. The rest of the way up is reached by a small, partially glazed lift.

Berlin's highest point of land is the Teufelsberg, a 120-metre-high mound of rubble left after gigantic World War II Nazi buildings were torn down. It has been covered with soil and is planted with bushes.

The levelled summit of this artificial "mountain" was once home to a US electronic monitoring station and may be visited only as part of a supervised tour. The slopes of the Teufelsberg are accessible and find use by hang gliders and even skiers.

But there is another way to the lofty heights.

Berlin's highest viewing platform is provided by a tethered balloon on Zimmer Strasse. It ascends to 150 metres with each load of visitors, weather permitting.

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