Southern France is so last summer: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have moved their brood to a southwestern corner of Berlin known for its lakes and historical infamy. Picturesque Wannsee features a long inland beach along two lakes that's perfect for the Jolie-Pitt kids, so long as nannies abound.

Pitt just signed on to Quentin Tarantino's remake of the Italian World War II classic "Inglorious Bastards," in which a group of prisoners escape around D-Day and find themselves wedged between both sides. The film is shooting in nearby Potsdam in the next few months, allowing Pitt to commute to "work." ("Inglorious Bastards" costars "National Treasure"'s Diane Kruger, horror director Eli Roth and "The Office"'s B.J. Novak.)

Sadly for us, it looks like the closest the Super World Travelers are going to get to the US this fall is on the big screen: Pitt's "Burn After Reading" topped the box office two weekends ago, while Jolie's "Changeling" will be feted at the New York Film Festival.

Wannsee is known to German history buffs as the location for the conference that outlined the "Final Solution"--the nest of policies that led to the Holocaust--in 1942.

Related Stories:
· Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Kids Are in Berlin in a Rented Estate for 90 Days [Celebitchy]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: JustJared]

A couple of months ago we told the tale of Hitler losing his head: A wax version of Hitler, at least, who was beheaded by a tourist very shortly after he was first exhibited in Berlin's Madame Tussaud's Waxworks.

The wax Hitler has now been carefully repaired and is on display again. There's a key difference this time: instead of being protected just by a rope cordon, Hitler is now safely behind a pane of glass in a reconstruction of the bunker where he spent his final days.

News of Hitler's return is suspiciously absent from the German-language "News" pages of the Berlin Madame Tussaud's website--instead there's just old news about J-Lo. We guess she's more of a priority these days.

Related Stories:
· Wax Hitler Returns to Madame Tussaud's Berlin [Bloomberg]
· When Tourists Attack: Hitler Loses His Head in Berlin [Jaunted]

[Photo: Bloomberg]

Is Berlin the new Amsterdam? Well, hipster enclave Prenzlauer Berg might be.

German cops have shut down a candy store in the notorious neighborhood in Berlin after discovering the 23-year-old owner was peddling chocolates and lollipops laced with magic mushrooms and marijuana.

"In the shop we found 120 pieces of magic mushroom chocolate and countless cannabis lollipops," said police, who confiscated around 70 sachets containing various drugs, about 20 marijuana joints, a range of pills and some jars of drug-laced honey

Sorry, we still haven't been able to dig up the address of the shuttered sweets shop!

Related Stories:
· Hallucinogenic Chocolates Doom Berlin Sweets Shop [Reuters]
· Drug Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: EuroMagic]

Yesterday a news report said that the computer reservations system for Best Western Europe had been hacked and detailed guest information had been sold to the Russian mob.

While many guests probably had a sleepless night worrying that someone named Vlad or Tatiana was going to take over their lives, Best Western today issued a statement that the initial hacking report is "largely erroneous."

We can confirm that on August 21, 2008, three separate attempts were made via a single log-on ID to access the same data from a single hotel. The hotel in question is the 107-room Best Western Hotel am Schloss Kopenick in Berlin, Germany, where a Trojan horse virus was detected by

Want to know what it's like to live in a country where government surveillance is rampant and your every move is tracked? See how fun it is to be watched at Zur Firma, a new bar in Berlin decorated with East German paraphernalia, including an interrogation table and fake security cameras!

John McCain is using Barack Obama's vacation videos against him! Footage of the crowd waiting for Obama in Berlin where he gave a speech last week opens a new campaign ad, which alleges that Obama is "the biggest celebrity in the world" and... thus... unfit to be president?

We're not sure we follow, but no way would 200,000 people line up for Paris Hilton any more (if they ever would have).

Both candidates will be speaking to much smaller crowds today, as McCain visits Racine, Wisconsin and Obama stops in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Then McCain's off to Panama City, Florida for a benefit concert featuring John Rich of Big'n'Rich. Who's the celeb magnet now?

Related Stories:
· John McCain Hosting Billionaires at the Plaza [HC]
· Obama Scorns Your Spandex [Jaunted]
· Obama-mania Sweeps Africa [Jaunted]

Barack Obama is having a bit of a scary time during his hotel stays as he conducts his trip abroad. When Obama was at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, shots rang out, killing an Arab bulldozer driver who had gone mental overturning vehicles and wounding 11 people. Yikes.

Now while he was holed up at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, a package was delivered that was initially deemed to be a bomb threat but turned out to only be a book. IHT reports:

The Hotel Adlon was closed off for 10 minutes while police specialists checked the package.

Police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski said that someone had sent a package containing a book

The super-hip Design Hotels has announced the date, location and agenda for its fifth annual Future Forum, the renowned architecture and design symposium for hospitality.

The three-day meeting of the world's best architects and hotel moguls will be happening in Berlin on October 15th-17th and the roster of speakers and agenda of events are both shaping up (ha!) nicely.

The symposium will explore the "relationship between the human being and design" through the themes of Design as Art ("the human wish for a unique identity and luxury status") and Conscious Design ("addressing the needs of the human being living in the modern world").

Among the featured speakers are designer Jason Miller, Stephen Burks of

Visitors to modern-day Germany are almost 20 years late to catch the Berlin Wall in action. But the structure that divided the city for 30 years and served as a symbol for the Cold War for both sides is visible thanks to the government's GPS tour of where the wall used to be.

Like an art museum audio guide, a "Walk the Wall" device can be picked up at several locations--like the Brandenburg Gate and popular crossover Checkpoint Charlie--and rented by the hour to dispense history lessons at various points where the wall used to stand.

Because it uses GPS, the guides can also tell you if you've strayed too far from the wall and how to get back on track. An iPod tour can't do that!

Related Stories:
· Walk the Wall [Berlin.de]
· iPod Audio Tours Taking Over New York [Jaunted]
· Berlin Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: burnblue]

The newest version of Madame Tussaud's wax museums opened up in Berlin over the weekend, but just seconds in to the new museum's life, a vandal struck: A Berlin man leaped right into the exhibits and tore off Adolf Hitler's head.

The wax figure of Hitler is now being repaired and the management of Madame Tussaud's is adamant that they'll return him to the exhibition. (The museum says market research they carried out before opening revealed that a majority of Germans wanted to have him on display.)

Ripping heads of wax dolls does sound like a nice way to get revenge over people, though. Only we mightn't target Hitler straight out: there's this rather enticing version of Britney Spears to be dealt with first.

Related Stories:
· Madame Tussauds Berlin [Official Site]
· Hitler Will Return [Spiegel]
· Madame Tussaud is a Slave 4 U [Jaunted]

[Photo from Prague Wax Museum: Curious Expeditions]