Berlin by bike

Hired a bike from the hotel. It’s about 10 quid per day. The bikes looked good, but it soon became apparent that mine had been involved in a fight with a bus and was generally unloved. The basket and bars were bent and scratched, brakes badly adjusted, chain slack, gears not indexed, the stand too short and the basket so loose that it kept spinning round. I bodged what repairs I could with a Leatherman, but it needed proper tools. Unloved bikes make me sad.

Headed south into Tiergarten and rode through the park. Passed a fat bloke sunbathing in the nip. That wasn't a pretty sight. The rest of the park is nice though. Stumbled across the Global Stone Project. Or Berlin-henge. The Africa stone was damn cool, but the Asia ones made better seats.

There are some spectacular sculptures in the park so it's worth taking a ride around. Worth noting that any trees left standing after Berlin was flattened during WW2 were cut down for fire wood. The trees that you see now, and there are thousands, were all planted after the war.

I headed towards the East Side Gallery with a slight detour en route to check out some of Berlins street art. The most famous is probably the spaceman by Victor Ash. It dominates the side of a huge building opposite an elevated railway line. It's awesome. I like.

There are a couple of other Ash projects in Berlin and they're all worth a little detour. He did one in support of minimum wage on the side of a huge building facing the parliament buildings. You can easily see it from the Reichstag dome. Which was obviously the whole idea.

Rode into Gorlitzer Park. I was told that this is real Berlin, away from the tourists. That maybe so, but it doesn't mean it's a particularly pleasant place. I mean, don't go there for a romantic walk or anything. The place has an interesting history but I wasn't gonna stop to read up on it. Sticking out like a sore thumb on my Best Western hire bike I buggered off. There’s a Turkish kebab shop on the north corner of the park. Apparently the best fast food in all of Berlin. I was told there’s always a queue, which indeed there was. I didn’t eat there but they were having a good turnaround.

There's loads of Turkish kebab shops in Berlin. In fact, it's difficult to find any good traditional Berlin food. I was reliably informed that one of the best places for authentic food is Max und Moritz, but this is actually run by an Irish guy. Nearly all the other restaurants are kebab shops. There are a few Italian restaurants, except all the Italians are actually Palestinians pretending to be Italian! I couldn't find a decent local brew either so I continually fell back to trusty Bavarian wheat beer. I did have some excellent food this lunchtime though. Cafehaus am Petriplatz across the road from Spittelmarkt U-Bahn station (near Museum Island). I think it is family run. Mother cooks all the food and brings it out to you. I had rabbit with braised red cabbage and potato dumplings followed by rice pudding with caramelised apple and cinnamon. The main was excellent. The rice pud was average, as was the espresso. My quest for decent coffee in Berlin continues.

Continuing to the East Side Gallery, I crossed the river on the spectacular Oberbaumbrücke (Oberbaum Bridge). I passed a tramp that was sat near me on the tube last night. He was still singing random crap and annoying strangers. He recognized me, but not before I recognized him and made my escape.

The East Side Gallery is a long section of wall that’s covered in street art. Proper graffiti. Some is run of the mill and a bit obvious, but there’s lots of emotion in some pieces. If you think of the time and context in which it was painted, some of it stop you in your tracks. It’s a long walk on foot. There were tour buses stopping nearby but a bike is definitely the way to go.

The other highlights and lowlights of my jolly little bike ride:

Checkpoint Charley
This just plays to the tourists. You can pay a couple of Euros to have your photos taken at the checkpoint with guys in guard costumes. It's somewhat disrespectful. Nothing to see here so skip this one.

Topography of Terror (Topographie des Terrors)
This was excellent. A free exhibition around a long stretch of Berlin Wall near the old Gestapo and SS headquarters. It discussed the history of Berlin from the early 20th century and the rise and fall of the wall. The propaganda stories were very interesting.
It talked about the persecution of Jews, gypsies, homeless and disabled people in Nazi Germany. Rather ironically, there were gypsies walking around the exhibition pestering you for money.
Nearby there’s also one of the few remaining watchtowers. It’s tucked away down a side road a few streets away so you need to look carefully and it isn’t signposted at all.

Hitlers Bunkers (Führerbunker)
This is now a carpark. Don’t expect anything more than an information board. The actual bunker, deep underground and heavily fortified, was blown up shortly after the war.

The Berlin Wall Memorial
A memorial site next to Nordbahnhof – a station that was is East Berlin but crossed by trains coming to and from West Berlin. It therefore became a disused ghost station for many years. There's a visitors centre but this had closed by the time I'd arrived at 6pm.The memorial is worth a visit if you're in the area though. I think the wall is reconstructed here rather than following the original path but you get a good idea of the layout, the construction and the death strip.
I got chatting to a lad from Israel while I was here. I don't think he quite got Berlin. He said there are walls and graffiti back home in Israel and Berlin is boring. He was looking forward to getting the train out to Hamburg tomorrow to spend a day or two at a big theme park. Apparently rollercoasters aren't boring like Berlin!