Seeing the Berlin Wall had never figured on our wish lists. When we thought about it, we usually turned sombre, recalling the stories we had read in our youth about those who had tried to get across it and flee to freedom. In our mind’s eye, it was this huge structure, made more intimidating with rolls of barbed wire, searchlights and guard dogs. It had come up and been brought down in the age of the media blitz, so we had seen ample pictorial evidence of the barbed-wire days and the demolition phase.

All in all, it was a grim place: Certainly not our first choice of places to visit.

So, when the opportunity came our way to visit Berlin, we rushed to our history books and to the internet, refreshing our memories about when exactly the wall had sprung up, how it had looked in its heydays, who were the statesmen and celebrities who had visited, how it came down and so on until it felt that there was only one place to see in Berlin ...

Then we took ourselves in hand. “It’s not the Great Wall of China — it hasn’t stood the test of time and existed for hundreds of years!” we said and turned our attention to the other places that were worth visiting in that city. Most of them, of course, were wishful thinking given the short time at our disposal: So we left it to our tour operator to make all the decisions for us.

Thus, in a whirlwind day-and-a-half, we were whizzed from one place to another with occasional stops to allow us to soak up the atmosphere of platz or park or palace. To keep the order of each day straight, I took notes furiously as we moved — somewhat like the way my fellow travellers used their cameras: None of us really taking a break to actually stand and stare and look around for a while. No, we had to get that photograph of the Goddess of Victory atop Brandenburg Gate, we had to note down when she was taken away by Napoleon and when she got back — and the change she underwent on her return ... We had to get that special view of the glass dome of the Bundestag and imagine how the building looked decades earlier — before it had been installed.

But the most thrilling part of our short trip was, without a doubt, the halt in front of what is called the East Side Gallery — an open-air gallery of paintings done on remnants of the Berlin Wall. Opposite it stands O2 World — an indoor arena that has hosted performances by most of the major names in the music world. The River Spree (which, in some parts of the city once formed the natural border between former East and West Berlin), flows sedately behind the wall and it is hard to imagine that it once had underwater fences and barricades and boats patrolling constantly to prevent defections.

Here, in a light but icy drizzle, we ventured close enough to be nose-to-nose with the work of artists from around the world — and wondered irrelevantly how the paintings would withstand the onslaught of wind and rain. We marvelled at the changed face of what was left of the infamous Berlin Wall — but more than that, we marvelled at how the structure itself was not as intimidating as we had pictured it. It was not as high or as thick as we had thought it would need to be to confine an entire population — but then, for us it was a tourist attraction, looked at in hindsight.

Only those who lived through its confinement know what it embodied in theory and in reality. As do those who continue to live behind similar walls.

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.