Berlin Sights & Highlights Guided Bike Tour

Kulturbrauerei and Prenzlauer Berg

The ride starts at the Kulturbrauerei, a yellow-brick industrial complex built in the 1880s and 1890s around six courtyards in Prenzlauer Berg. After decades of neglect it was restored in the late 1990s and now holds a cinema, a museum about everyday life in East Germany, concert halls and a Sunday street-food market. Around it spreads Prenzlauer Berg, a district of late nineteenth-century tenements with stucco facades, tree-lined streets and corner cafés that survived the war largely intact.

Here you choose a bike that fits you, adjust the saddle and set off along the quiet side streets of the district, which is the most pleasant place in Berlin to get used to cycling in the city. The guide explains how this once run-down working quarter became one of the most sought-after addresses after 1990. Riders looking for a bike tour Prenzlauer Berg can start from will find this is the natural gateway to the centre.

The Government District and Berlin Central Station

From Prenzlauer Berg the route crosses the former border into the heart of the city and reaches the Government District on a bend of the River Spree. The Reichstag, completed in 1894 and crowned with a glass dome in 1999, houses the German parliament; beside it a ribbon of modern buildings crosses the river to the Federal Chancellery, built in 2001 so that government and parliament straddle the old line between East and West. Across the water stands Berlin Central Station, a glass-and-steel station opened in 2006 with tracks on several levels.

This is one of the best stretches of the ride, because the wide riverside paths and car-free squares were made for cycling. You stop for photos of the Reichstag and the dome, and the guide explains how to book the free dome visit on your own. Allow about twenty minutes here before rolling on to the Brandenburg Gate a few hundred metres away.

Brandenburg Gate and the Tiergarten edge

The Brandenburg Gate, built between 1788 and 1791 with the Quadriga chariot on top, is the symbol of Berlin and the point where Unter den Linden meets the Tiergarten park. It stood sealed inside the border strip from 1961 to 1989, and the celebrations when it reopened are the images most people remember of the Wall's fall. Pariser Platz in front of it is closed to cars, so the group can gather beside the columns for the guide's story.

A Brandenburg Gate bike tour has one advantage over walking: you approach from the Tiergarten side, where the gate appears at the end of the long avenue through the park, the view that was designed in the eighteenth century. The stop here is around fifteen minutes with time for photographs, before a short ride south to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Opened in 2005 a block south of the gate, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe covers a whole city block with 2,711 concrete slabs of different heights set on sloping ground. From the edge it looks like a low grey field; walking into it, the paths drop and the blocks rise above head height, an effect the guide explains along with the long public debate that preceded the design. An underground information centre beneath the field documents the victims and can be visited later free of charge.

Bikes are parked at the edge while the group walks into the memorial on foot for about fifteen minutes; cycling is not allowed inside and the atmosphere calls for quiet. It is the most reflective stop of the ride and sets up the guide's explanation of the ministry quarter nearby, where the Nazi state was administered.

The Berlin Wall

The Wall encircled West Berlin for 28 years, from 13 August 1961 to 9 November 1989, with an inner wall, a death strip of sand and watchtowers, and the outer concrete wall that the world photographed. Little of it survives in the centre; the ride passes original sections where the guide can show the layers of the border and tell the stories of escapes, and points out the double row of cobblestones that marks the former line across streets and squares.

A Berlin Wall bike tour makes sense of the geography in a way that a map never does: you cross the old border several times in one afternoon and see how the city has grown back together. The guide covers the building of the Wall, daily life on both sides and the peaceful protests of 1989. Expect around fifteen minutes at the Wall stop, with time for photos.

Gendarmenmarkt and Museum Island

Gendarmenmarkt is widely called the most beautiful square in Berlin: the Concert Hall of 1821 with its broad staircase stands between the French Cathedral and the German Cathedral, two matching domed churches of the early eighteenth century. The French church was built for Huguenot refugees who settled in Berlin, and the guide explains how they shaped the city's crafts and language. A few minutes further, over the Spree, lies Museum Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with five museums built between 1830 and 1930 and Berlin Cathedral beside them.

These two stops close the ride: about ten minutes on the square and fifteen on the island, seen from outside, with the Humboldt Forum and the Lustgarten lawn as the backdrop for final photographs. From Museum Island the group rides back north through Mitte to the Kulturbrauerei, where the bikes are returned after about 3.5 hours.