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