Bike Tour of Berlin...

We decided the best way to see a lot of Berlin was to take

a tour. But I don't like tours, like on a bus where you have

some person talking in a microphone and just giving you a

memorized script of the sights. So we decided to take a BIKE tour

of the city. We rode for 5 hours and got to see so many sights

that we would have never gotten to see otherwise.

As we were walking to the plaza where we were going to

join the tour we came across this bear and had to stop

for a photo. Tom use to sing a German song to the kids

when they were little about a bear.

Germans are taken with "Bare." He is on their Coat of Arms

and you see bears everywhere.  There are a lot of stories as to

where this obsession came about, but we couldn't find the actual 

one, except it had something to do with "Albrecht, the Bear" who

was the governor of Brandenburg.

Our tour was with "Fat Tire"bike tours.

Tom's getting his bike ready for the tour.  Our tour

guide asked if someone would bring up the rear of

the group to make sure no one got separated from the

group. Tom volunteered so he was then given the

title of the (excuse the German) "Ass-man." Pretty funny!

One of the first sites was Bebelplatz where Humboldt

University is.

But more significant, this is where Hitler ordered

over 40,000 books burned.  The building on the

right is the library.

Photo op!

We saw a lot of what you would think were old

buildings, but 80% of Berlin was destroyed during 

WWII, so most of the buildings were rebuilt but they

made them to look old like they have always existed.

But then you have the new style architecture.

Berlin is one of the top three cities in the world that

has the most construction occurring. 

There's a lot of incredible art throughout the city:

We went to "Checkpoint Charlie."

There is a walk-through museum that has buildboard

photos. This is what Checkpoint Charlie looked like

when Tom lived in Berlin.

This is Checkpoint Charlie today.

It's just the little white guard box with "actor" soldiers

standing guard.

Of course McDonalds has to have a piece of the action.

This is a museum park in honor of all the Jews who lost

their lives during the war. The tombs are all different heights

and there are small walkways like a maze throughout the

park. It's very quiet and quite sobering.

The German "White House." The president of

Germany lives here, but I took the picture because these

white go-carts were driving around. There were 8 of them

going all over the city.

This is the building where a lot of the government

meetings take place.

On the side of the government building is a good shot

of the famous television tour. Our guide, Alex, was

hilarious and called it a "disco ball on a stick."

There's a big story about why it was build but it would

take too long to explain. But one thing,

Hitler had all the crosses taken off all churches to demean

people's religion but if you look closely on the silver ball

the reflection of the sun actually makes a cross.

The whitish looking line on the ball is in the form of a cross.

The German's get a good laugh over it.

Brandenburg Gate: it was in full swing getting ready for the

broadcast of the soccer game tomorrow night. It's hard to see

but on the backside of the monument is the huge screen that

will show the game. There was a lot going on today, can't

imagine what tomorrow will be like.

This bike is the new way to get around. It holds six

bikers plus the guide (in the yellow jacket).  Everyone

has to peddle to make the bike go forward.

Also on the Pariser Platz, which is where the

Brandenburg Gate is, is the Hotel Adlon. It's famous

because this is the place Michael Jackson dangled his

baby out the window.

To the left of Tom, building is the

American Embassy. (good to know)

Neptune's fountain:

Because there is so much building taking place in Berlin

and due to the amount of ground water, during building they

have to pump water out of the construction area. To do this

they have these above ground pipes that take the water away

from the site. There are pipes everywhere and in a lot of

different colors.

One of our last stops was Museum Island. Most of the museums

in the city are in this area. It was really funny because our guide,

Alex, (in the blue shirt) told us that unless we like broken pottery,

the museum behind him wasn't worth going into. Cracked us up.

Thanks Alex for a great tour. We could not have seen all we

saw on our own.

What will we do tomorrow????