When I got to Berlin and headed off for the food & bike tour, I found the Fat Tire meeting place for the tour really easily. The TV tower in Alexanderplatz is super hard to miss. It’s very Sputnik like, it was built by the old East Germans, using help from some Swedish engineers apparently. Met our tour guide Alex, easy name to remember considering where I was in Alexanderplatz. This was a small tour only one other lady (Eva). Both Alex and Eva are from Canada.
We are fitted with Bikes, and I really like the Fat Tire ones, very easy to ride and they don’t have back pedal brakes, so I can reverse the pedals normally to get them in the right position. All bikes in Copenhagen had them. For some reason Eva’s bike does have them as well as the normal brakes so she had plenty of stopping power.
We set off and stop at a bride not far from Alexanderplatz and we are served Champagne (well German sparking wine technically as it’s not from Champagne in France). This was an old East German brand, sweeter than I expected and not heavy on the bubbles. This could be downed quite easily on a hot day. I’m instantly reminded that I’m not in Australia as I could not imagine this would pass muster with our RSA (responsible service of Alcohol) laws, especially considering we are on the road with traffic. I’m sticking to one only as I quite certain Germany will have similar drink driving/cycling laws to Australia if it came to the crunch. Even though I’ve been in Europe for a few weeks riding on the right is still strange and the brakes on the bike are back to front for me.
As this is a food tour we head over to a place that servers middle eastern style food and we have falafel, fried haloumi, some pita bread, tabouli and hummus etc. all incredibly delicious and equally as good as good as what I’ve had at home in Sydney. Over this we just discuss life the universe and everything about Berlin and how Alex as a Canadian ended up running bike tours in Berlin.
After this we head off and tour some sections of Berlin where the wall used to be and there is a recreation of the wall in a section and a park that has some memorials. You can always tell if you were on the west side if you can read the text in the ground. If it’s upside down you are on the old East side. Germany never considers the DDR a seperate Germany, it was just Soviet occupied Germany on which they had no control. Anyone escaping could reclaim their German citizenship instantly.
The traffic light walk and stop symbol here in Berlin use the old East German symbol. This is quite famous and probably most loved bit left over from the old East Germany. It’s called Ampelmannchen. Of course plenty of shops sell all sorts of Ampelman stuff.
After this we head into Prenzlauerberg, one of the trendiest and nicest sections of Berlin and go to the “Schule” restaurant and have a type of German Tapas sampling menu. We have currry wurst, schnitzel, Spatzle (German macaroni & cheese) and a type of pizza they used to test the ovens for the correct temperature too cook bread. flammkuchen (flamecake) .I wash this down with a glass of Weißburgunder. Yum, yum, yum.
We were under a red umbrella in the sun, hence the weird colour of some of these pictures.
After this we head over to the water tower to try and get some sunset shots.
Time for thhe cake and coffee in another part of Prenzlauerberg. The cake was fantastic. I had a flat white, it was ok but I thought it was a little watery to pass for what I’d term a flat white back home. It seemed more like a slightly milky Americano with milk froth on top. After this it was a slight downhill run for a couple of km back to the tv tower. On a warm night cruising down at a nice speed in the breeze with not traffic or pedestrians was awesome.
If you are in Berlin I’d highly recommend this tour.
It's all about the coffee 