Riding Along On Your Push Bike Honey
Trip Start
Oct 22, 2005
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146
224
Trip End
Ongoing
Berlin, Germany
Friday, August 25, 2006
Looking at the guide book we decided to stay in the old East Berlin part of town and headed to a funky hostel called Heart of Gold. We're not sure why it had a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy theme, but it was pretty new and one of the best hostels we'd seen on the trip.
The next day firstly we had to get our paperwork together to apply for our Brazilian VISA. Not as convoluted as the Russian VISA but pretty close on the amount of paperwork and supporting documentation we had to provide. Paying the fee we hoped in a few days time we'd have a VISA sticker inside our passports.
With the afternoon free of travel administration tasks we decided to join a bike tour of Berlin. It was really cool! We both got our cruiser bikes and headed off in a small group of about eight people, all following our guide, a history graduate currently studying for his doctorate. The tour was fantastic with highlights being the old Berlin Wall, Reichstag Building, old Luftwaffe Headquarters, new Jewish Holocaust Memorial and the site of Hitler's Bunker. We also rode through the famous Brandenburg Gate then headed to Checkpoint Charlie and the Babel Platz, the site of Nazi book burning. This was when the heavens decided to open and we all made a dash for the shelter at one of the museums. A thunderstorm had rolled in thankfully just at the end of our 4 hour tour. We thoroughly enjoyed the bike tour and were impressed at the depth of knowledge of our guide. We'd recommend seeing Berlin this way to anyone.
