Berlin by bike

We enjoyed a weekend in Berlin in October and were lucky enough to stay with friends in their apartment, giving us a local take on this small city. Arriving early on the Friday morning, we raced in from the airport to join a Fat Tire Bike Tour which is an excellent way to see a city (having done this in Barcelona too, we reckon it’s far better than a walking tour). And what better place to cycle than in Berlin, where there are bike lanes everywhere and cars give way to cyclists so we felt super safe.

The tour took us to all the main sites, as well as our kiwi guide offering an excellent history of the city. The tour included Checkpoint Charlie, various parts of the wall, the Reichstag, and a nice beer garden for lunch (would be better in summer!).  Post tour we went to the DDR museum that gave us a good insight (and a few laughs) about life behind the Wall for the East Germans. We then visited a local restaurant with our friends, Arema – excellent food and value.

We had enjoyed cycling around so much that we borrowed our friends’ bikes the following day to do more. We visited the museum for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which was an excellent, and very personal and emotional, memorial museum set underneath the memorial itself. The memorial has a fascinating history, with the chemical used as an anti-graffiti substance on the concrete blocks that form the memorial produced by the same company that produced Zyklon B used to poison people in the gas chambers during WWII.

We then visited the Topography of Terror, the German History Museum and rode down Karl Marx Alee to see more of the East of the City in person.

Sunday we were up early to catch the All Blacks v Argentina (in the Rugby World Cup) at an Irish Pub before taking a look at Mauerpark fleamarket and the Berlin Wall Memorial, an excellent open air strip of land where the wall once was, looking at the lives of those on either side, and some of the escape attempts that took place. Finally, we took in the East Side Gallery, a 1.3km of the wall covered with art.

We had some problems getting back to the airport, assuming the train lines would all be running which was a mistake. Ongoing works meant we had to decipher German to get off the train, get a bus, then another train, and put a sprint on to catch our flight. Think we’re becoming too relaxed with flights, so we need to leave more time in future. Life ain’t the Amazing Race, von Yarralls!