ETR // Berlin

Location

Project Partners

Project Manager

Dave O'Byrne

Project

Travel Marketing Concept
Local & Regional Focus
Destination Marketing
City Motorcycle Tours
Marketing Campaign
Gastro Experiences
Experience Design
Integrated Routes
History & Culture
50 City Locations
Monuments
Restaurants
Waterways
Breweries
Museums
Galleries
Hotels

With it's broad streets and grand Allées, diversity of architecture, beautiful rivers, lakes, bridges, parks and gardens, and infinite layers of history and culture, Berlin is close to the top of the list of great cites for immersing yourself in culture and history, anywhere in the world.

As a city, Berlin is active on so many levels, and can be approached from many different angles (culture, history, arts, nature, gastro) as well as all of the sights, memorials, galleries, events, viewpoints and attractions that Berlin relentlessly bombards you with....

A good way to start, is to get off the "Stadtring" motorway at Kaiserdamm Süd in Charlottenburg, and turn east onto Kaiserdamm, then ride in towards Mitte along Kaiserdamm, Bismarckstraße, then Straße des 17. Juni, past the Russian Memorial, until you reach the Brandenburg Gate.

It's a great introduction to Berlin, and will lead you into the centre with a minimum of traffic, and a lot of interesting things to see and visit, along the way. From there, it's a stone's throw to the Jewish Memorial on Cora-Berliner-Straße, and the futuristic and multilayer experience of Potzdamer Platz, 1,000 meters south of the Brandenburg Gate.

A CITY OF GREAT CONTRASTS

Whether you want to immerse yourself in Berlin's dark, hard and interesting past, exploring the subterranean architecture of Berliner Unterwelten, or marvel at the rate at which the city is embracing the future, through ground-breaking technology, architecture, design and engineering, you can experience both ends of the spectrum in the same day, giving you a lot of information to digest, over a tall glass of Berliner Weisse, in the warm evening air. This is one of the reasons that you should stay there for a number of days, and digest the city slowly. You can't eat it all in a weekend.

One of the best times to explore Berlin on your motorbike, and "make it your own", is after the evening rush has dissipated, and Berliners exchange their cars and bikes for dinner tables, at one of the city's many great restaurants and café's. While they're taking it easy after a hard day's work, you can make use of the broad, empty streets, and explore the city more freely.

Another great thing about Berlin, is that you can always find somewhere safe to park your motorcycle, usually very close to the many sites and attractions you want to visit. This cuts down on walking time, and enables you to see more, in a shorter timeframe, and with a further range than if you were walking or cycling.

HOT SUMMERS IN BERLIN

At a temperature of 30+ degrees, and not a cloud in the sky, the coolest place to be is on the motorcycle, where the breeze can keep you chilled as you ride through the city streets. Each time you stop at the lights, you can feel just how warm it is, as the sweat starts rolling down your back again. At this point, there's nothing better to do, than to park the bike at the hotel, grab your walking shoes, find one of Berlin's beautiful Biergärten, and have a cold and relaxing Weißbier by the riverside, for example, at the converted cargo vessel Van Loon, on Carl-Herz-Ufer, or at Schleusenkrug, in the leafy woods at the western edge of Tiergarten park. Another great location for warm food and a cold beer, is 'Anhalt', at Vor dem Schlesischen Tor 2, close to Treptower Park.

Breweries

Biergärten

Take a ride westwards past the decomissioned Cold War "Teufelsberg Abhörstation" (Devil's Mountain Listening Station), and take Havelchaussee southwards, through the western Grunewald forest to Spinner Brücke near the shore of the Wannsee lake.

Here, you'll find a lot of like-minded individuals on two wheels, as AVUS Spinner Brücke is the traditional meeting place for about 30,000 motorcyclists from Berlin and Brandenburg, who have gathered here each year for the last 50 years, to exchange stories, eat and drink together, and check out the latest motorcycles from major manufacturers such as Honda, Suzuki, Harley Davidson and BMW, who display their newest motorcycles here, at one of the over 50 exhibition spaces.

On the way back into Berlin, check out the Olympiastadion in Westend / Charlottenburg, which was originally built for the 1936 Summer Olympics, to house 110,000 spectators. Quite a structure! I could spend then next few hours listing the hundreds of great places, and cool things to do, but that would just be my experience - not yours... The best thing for you to do, is to go there yourself, discover your own Berlin, and find all the great places, in your own time.