Berlin -- Thousands of curious Berliners lined the centre of the German capital Saturday to admire over 1,000 giant polystyrene dominos set to topple Monday, marking 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down.

Under sunny skies, onlookers walked along the 1.5 km stretch of dominos, stacked along the former location of the Wall in the area around the Brandenburg gate and the Reichstag.

"It's really very beautiful, it's a terrific idea", enthused 74-year-old Berlin resident Barbara Graff, taking photos of the 2.5 metre-high coloured dominos.

"November 9, 1989? Of course I remember! That night I went to the Ku'damm (the main shopping artery in West Berlin), and I distributed money to the people arriving en masse from the East."

Jorg Schmidt, 45 years-old, admired "the diversity and expressive power" of the dominos, which were decorated by artists and cultural institutes, but also Berlin schoolchildren and teenagers.

"This proves that people reflected on what reunification represents," said the civil servant who grew up in the East, "and that's very good because today young people don't know anything about all of this."

But many onlookers said they planned to stay at home when the dominos topple on Monday night, worried about big crowds and a poor weather forecast.

As well as the spectacular toppling of the dominos, the programme also includes a firework display, concerts and a human chain linking thousands of Germans and foreigners together along the former Wall path.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the French and Russian Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitri Medvedev, as well as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are expected to attend official festivities Monday night, alongside the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

AFP/Expatica