Riding around Berlin

We have all been looking forward to today.  Our first proper bike tour, we will do a few along the way.

McDonald's for breakfast - not a lot of other options until much later in the morning - Europeans are not early risers!  The advantage of there being not many tourists around was that we got to have better photos at the Checkpoint.

Tony updating our history knowledge

strange looking bacon

We caught a taxi over to the meeting point - I was a bit bummed as the only taxi available was a Toyota - a lot of the others are Mercedes Benz's!

We got our bikes sorted quite quickly - each of them had names. Tony had the Space Ace, Nate had Hebe and I had Rocky Balboa (kinda relevant because for me to survive the day in one piece would take a real effort :-)

lots of bikes - this time with gears

 

We scored a tour guide called Jeff who was originally from Tasmania so had no trouble understanding him.  I cant really say much more so Ill let the photos do the talking.  The ride was simply amazing though and were so glad we could do it. 

Neptune Fountain

Berliner Fernsehturm (Tv Tower)

Berlin State Library

site of the Nazi book burning 1933

open air book reading space now

Gendarmenmarkt - Französischer Dom (french speaking church)

Gendarmenmarkt - Konzerthaus (concert house)

Gendarmenmarkt - Deutscher Dom (German speaking church)

Detlev Rohwedder House - Home of the Luftwaffe

one of the three remaining sniper towers

just a random beetle in the street

site of  Fuhrerbunker - where he killed himself - April 30 1945 (72 years ago today)

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of  Europe

Victory Monument

Statue of Victoria

Reichstag building (parliament)

Site of Brandenburg Gates

Berliner Dom

Altes Museum

Partway through the bike tour we rode through the magnificent Tiergarten Park.  It was an old Prussian Hunting ground for nobility.  We didn't go there to hunt, we just went to eat. In the park is a magnificent Beergarten.  It was schnitzel all around and it was great!

Biergarten

Buble beer - very good!

hot choc with cream again - fast becoming a favourite

Schnitzel with warm potato salad

After lunch was done we rode back to base camp at the TV tower.  All up was bout a 17km ride which was a fair bit more than we had planned for.

We rewarded ourselves with another Beer and some icecream.

Erdinger beer this time

cold outside, cold inside

 Twas back to the hotel then an a warm soaking bath to relieve the legs.  We went for a quick stroll down the road for german sausages for dinner!  Was such a great day.

Wine for the night was a Shiraz - was OK

The Wall

After a pretty darn good night's sleep at this country haven we were ready for breaky at 8.  We walked over to the restaurant and found that we had a table reserved for us with coffee waiting!   Was a nice thoughtful touch.   Nate was happy to have eggs, his favorite breakfast food. 

We went back to our room and watched a bit of footy before taking off for Berlin.  Was another 300 or so kilometres on the autobahn to get there, and there were only fractionally less trucks on the road so still the traffic was scary.   We made good time even with a stop to refuel and have a quick Bretzel for a snack.  Did I mention before that you need to pay to use the service station toilets? Didn't in France but have everywhere since.   Costs between 50 and 70 cents and generally gets you a pretty clean and tidy bathroom. Also the ones in Germany spin the toilet seats everytime you flush - I think its trying to clean the rim but its very odd.

lots of forests on this drive

yummy salty pretzel

Elbe river

quiet part of the Autobahn

not so quiet part

sorry I cut Ulbrecht's head off

nice wide roads in the city

first sighting of The Wall remnants

  Our new hotel is also nice and our room is certainly big enough for us and our luggage.  I'm pretty happy too as it's on a street right between Checkpoint Charlie,  and also the remnants of the Berlin Wall!

Because we got here early we had some time to kill so we walked down the road a little and ordered up some Currywurst for lunch.   For those of you who don't know what that is its basically a thick sausage cut up and served with a spicy ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder, served with fries of course.  Tony also got himself a groovy Berlin souvenir. 

serving up the wurst

chopped sausage in a spicy tomatoey sauce, sprinkled with curry powder

now he has warm ears

Before we returned we had a bit of a look at Checkpoint Charlie - so crowded with tourists here!  

lots of info about the Berlin Wall here

Checkpoint Charlie

Also we're in the same street as the Trabi museum - Trabi, or Trabant is a famous East German car made many years ago - they're pretty rubbish but now legendary.  You can do a tour of the city in a convoy of them - as long as you follow the lead car you're OK.
 

stretch limo Trabi

Nate in front of Trabi World

Once into our room at 3pm I snoozed for a bit while Tony tried to catch up on the cycling; Tour de Romandie.  Nate and I then went for a walk to the Mall of Berlin for a wee bit of a shop.   Nate bought some new Nikes and I bought Tony some new cycling gloves. The weather has been fairly kind today,  just cold with some light showers here and there so it's hasn't been a problem getting outside.

buildings are quite lovely

Happy kid

inside the mall

just walking the dog

Lazy dinner tonight, just some KFC from next door to the Checkpoint and Tony tried some German wine which was a bit light for his taste.