Private Government District & Places of Democracy Walking Tour Berlin

The Futurium and Berlin Central Station

The walk begins at the Futurium, the angular glass and metal building on the north bank of the Spree beside Berlin Central Station. Opened in 2019 as a house of futures, it is a museum and laboratory about how people might live, work and travel in the decades ahead, with a rooftop skywalk that gives a first view over the government district. Next to it the central station, opened in 2006 with trains on five levels, is the largest crossing station in Europe and the arrival point for most visitors to the city, which makes the Futurium an easy place for your private guide to meet you.

From here your guide explains the shape of the quarter you are about to walk through: the river, the former border that ran along it, and the band of new federal buildings laid across both. This Berlin government district walking tour takes about five minutes here before heading for the water.

The Spree riverbank and the Berlin Wall trail

Crossing the Spree on the footbridge beside the parliament buildings, you walk from the former East to the former West of Berlin, because the river was the border here from 1961 to 1989 and the Wall ran along its southern bank. The Berlin Wall trail, the marked path that follows the whole course of the former border around the city, passes along this stretch with original wall segments set in the ground. Right by the water stands the Parliament of the Trees, a memorial garden created in 1990 from rows of trees, wall slabs and plaques bearing the names of people killed at the border, which has become a quiet counterpoint to the glass buildings around it.

A few steps further the White Crosses memorial at the Reichstagufer remembers individual victims of the Wall, with simple crosses first placed here in 1971 by West Berliners. Your guide spends about fifteen minutes on this riverbank, the most moving part of the route.

Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, Jakob-Kaiser-Haus and Paul-Löbe-Haus

The parliament works in three modern buildings that surround the Reichstag. The Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus on the north bank, completed in 2003, holds the library, archive and research services of the Bundestag behind a huge circular window and houses a Wall memorial in its basement where the border is marked by original slabs. Across the river, connected by a double footbridge that symbolises the stitched-together city, the Paul-Löbe-Haus of 2001 contains the committee rooms, visible in a row of glazed cylinders along the facade. East of the Reichstag, the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus is the largest of all, a complex of eight blocks with offices for members of parliament and their staff.

The guide walks you around the outside of all three, explaining how the architecture was designed to show transparency and how a bill moves between committee rooms, offices and the plenary chamber. Allow about twenty minutes for this part of the private tour.

The Federal Chancellery

The Federal Chancellery is the office and official residence of the German head of government, a white cube of 2001 with a central block thirty-six metres high, long wings of offices on either side and a garden that stretches across the river. Its size and its large circular openings earned it the nickname of the washing machine, and together with the Paul-Löbe-Haus and the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus it forms the ribbon of federal buildings running from west to east across the Spree, a symbol of the capital's reunification. In the forecourt stands a large iron sculpture, and the building can be seen from the lawn without any security check.

Your guide explains the role of the chancellor and cabinet, how the building works from day to day and where the best photos are taken, usually from Platz der Republik with the chancellery framed by the trees. Expect about ten minutes here.

Platz der Republik and the Reichstag

The tour ends on Platz der Republik, the wide lawn that lies between the Chancellery, the Paul-Löbe-Haus and the Reichstag and was once the parade ground in front of the imperial parliament. The Reichstag itself, built between 1884 and 1894, burned in 1933, stormed in 1945 and wrapped, restored and crowned with a glass dome in the 1990s, is explained from outside: your guide tells the story of the building, the inscription To the German People on its facade, the fire and the reconstruction, and the tasks of the modern Bundestag that sits inside it.

This walk does not enter the Reichstag, as a visit to the dome requires separate advance registration with the parliament, but your guide shows you where the visitor entrance is and explains exactly how to register for a Reichstag visit on another day. The walk ends here after about ninety minutes, a short stroll from the Brandenburg Gate and the Tiergarten.