Fat Tire Bike Tour - Berlin

Sister Katie and I had a marvelous time in Berlin, Germany. Not only did we partake in copious amounts of sausage and beer, but we also were able to spend 5 hours touring around Berlin on bikes - by far the best way to see a city. Well, at least a city that's as flat as Berlin. I don't think a Seattle bike tour would be as pleasant.

The best part about the bike tour was the distance that could be travelled. There would be no way to see all that we were able to on our bike tour if you were just walking. We travelled on sidewalks, bike lanes, bus lanes, down busy roads and our guide actually stopped traffic at uncontrolled intersections simply by standing in the middle of the street. I've gotten kind of used to Casablanca traffic, where cars won't even slow down for pedestrians crossing.

One of the many stops on our tour was Checkpoint Charlie, which marks the spot of a famous border checkpoint between the Soviet and American sectors of Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie was the third checkpoint (after Alpha and Beta, of course) when travelling from outside Germany to the American side of Berlin. In addition to a museum chronicling escape attempts, there is also this living representation of the US checkpoint just hanging out in the middle of the street. These actors pose for pics.

The Berlin Wall is a 100 mile, 13 foot high wall with a 16 foot tank ditch and a "no man's land" that was 13-160 feet wide. It was erected in 1961 by the Soviets so that East Berliners wouldn't keep streaming over to West Berlin. Not much is left.

The Berlin Wall was knocked down in November 1989 and was celebrated with a concert in December 1989 that included what I'm sure was a delightful musical performance by David Hasselhoff. He performed his song "Looking for Freedom" while standing on the wall. All throughout the city of Berlin are double lines of cobblestones that mark the former location of the Berlin Wall.

Along the wall were 300 sentry towers. These towers were manned by multiple guards that were ordered to shoot people trying to get over the wall immediately. Many deserted their posts in order to selfishly escape to West Berlin. Some escaping guards were caught and others chose to join their colleagues so that they didn't have to shoot them. Of the 5,043 documented escapes over the Berlin Wall, 565 were East German guards. Here's a pic of our tour guide, Mike from Colorado (gray shirt), telling us about the life of a tower guard. We also rode our bikes by the Brandenburg Gate, which was built in the late 18th century and eventually became a gate through the Berlin Wall. On November 9, 1989, people crammed through the gate, marking the end of the barrier between East and West Berlin. The chick with the horses on top is the Goddess of Peace, later named the Goddess of Victory.
These are only a few of the many stops on our bike tour through Berlin. One of our favorite stops was the biergarten where we sat back and relaxed with sausage and beer. We also saw many other interesting monuments and historical sites throughout the city. I highly recommend doing a bike tour, particularly a Fat Tire Bike Tour, if you're ever in Berlin. I'm planning on doing the Fat Tire Bike Tour in Barcelona when I go there at the end of May. Hopefully, I'll get to ride another bike with a name as cool as Beyonce.