”Berlin is a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being.“
Karl Scheffler, author of ”Berlin: destiny of a city“, 1910
» Berlin Sightseeing Tour - History & Major Places
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Berlin has many layers of dynamic history, and there is no better place to experience them than the city centre Berlin Mitte, literally 'middle.' Largely hidden behind the Berlin wall during the Cold War, Mitte provides the clearest window into the city's medieval origins, its Prussian and Nazi past, its legacy as a divided city, and the constant change that is New Berlin. |
This tour includes the new government district, contemporary culture and art, and state of the art architecture, as well as Berlin's must-see highlights from the Reichstag to the Brandenburg Gate to the newly completed Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. | Prices & Booking |
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» Tour Options: Duration and Means of Transport
What is the optimal tour duration?
You should allow at least 3 hours for a general overview. If your time is limited, a shorter tour with a focus on specific locations is possible. For an in-depth tour with time for discussion we recommend 4-5 hours.
Walking tour, bike tour, van or bus tour?
This tour is ideal for a walking tour, but can of course offered as a guided van, bus or bike tour.
Price for our sightseeing tours
Our private guided tours cost 45-75 Euros per hour for a walking tour, depending on group size and duration. For more information see Prices & Booking.
"Hello Bjorn, thank you very much for all the arrangements here in Berlin. It has gone very smoothly, and my group is very happy! The guide has been superb and everyone very complimentary. We will keep in touch! With best regards " Tour: Berlin Sigthseeing Tour & Sachsenhausen, David... read more guests comments
» Selected Sightseeing Attractions: Berlin Sightseeing Tours – History & Major Places
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Lustgarten (Pleasure Garden): See the elegant Berlin Cathedral, the crumbling hull of the socialist Palace of the Republic, the Old Museum, a masterpiece of Berlin's most famous architect, Karl Schinkel, and the foundation stones of the former Berlin City Palace. The Lustgarten provides a good opportunity to talk about the split between east and west, which has certainly not vanished since 1989, and the many ways Berlin is coming to terms with its past. |
Forum Fridericanum: The centre of Berlin's high culture, designed and conceived by one of the most famous Berliners of all time, the Prussian king Frederick the Great. See the plush State Opera House, St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, and the world class Humboldt University, which can claim 29 Nobel Prize winners as its own. View the newly completed underground memorial to the 1933 Nazi book burning, which took place on this square. |
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Berlin Wall: Take a pair of scissors and cut a city in two: this is the famous barrier that symbolized the Cold War. It separated people for three decades: parents and children, lovers and friends. You’ll travel to one of the last remaining sections of the wall to hear stories and facts about the process of division, daring and often deadly escape attempts, and the modern significance of Berlin's most recognized historical structure. |
Checkpoint Charlie: The famous crossing point from the American sector into East Berlin and the communist world. One of three checkpoints between the allied sectors of Berlin and the Soviet sector, Checkpoint Charlie was the most famous. Peter Fechter died next to the wall at this site, unassisted by nearby East German border guards. And do you know the story of the tank confrontation here, in which the cold war almost became a hot one? |
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Marx-Engels-Forum: A grandiose East German tribute to the communist forefathers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. See an embodiment of East German ideology in the massive square which lies before the stunning TV tower built by the East German government, still one of Europe's tallest buildings Get the inside story on Russian concrete and much more anecdotes.. |
Topography of Terror: The site of the SS and Gestapo headquarters. A powerful exhibition on crimes committed by the Nazis is now housed in the excavated prison cells once used for the so-called "intensified questioning" of political opponents of the Nazi regime. This is where the Holocaust was planned, and where Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler had their offices. Why did the German public ignore this place until the end of the 1970s? |
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Brandenburger Tor: The enduring symbol of Berlin. Everyone who ever believed themselves to be in charge in Germany marched through this gate, including Napoleon in 1806, the German army in 1870 and 1914 and the Nazi Storm Troopers in 1933.Today the meaning of the gate has changed: it is seen as a symbol of the German unification created by the will of the people who danced on the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate in November 1989. |
Fuehrerbunker: When Hitler’s new Chancellery, designed by Albert Speer, opened in 1939, an adjacent bunker was already under construction. Finished in January 1945, this would be the place where Hitler spent his final weeks, rejecting the possibility of defeat even with the Red Army at his doorstep. Hear the story of his last days, his marriage to Eva Braun and their suicide pact. Is anything left under the ground? |
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Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: Completed in April 2006, perhaps the most impressive sight and symbol of the New Berlin, an expression of the German need to handle the atrocities of the past. A three-football-field sized memorial to the destruction of European Jewry is located in the city centre, designed by the Jewish American architect Peter Eisenmann. An appropriate site for discussion of the difficult relationship between Germans and Jews today. |
The Reichstag: In 1884, when the Emperor picked up a trowel to lay the foundation stone, it fell off its velvet cushion. Was this an omen of what followed, namely a new scale of war and Hitler’s rise to power? Today the building is a symbol for the new Germany, for a transparent and democratic society grappling with the failures of the past. |
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German Ministry of Finance: This building was built in 1936 as Goring’s Luftwaffe headquarters. It survived the war and served as the Haus der Minsterien for the communist GDR Government. Soviet tanks fired on East German workers here in 1953. Today it still is one of the largest and most impressive buildings on Wilhelmstrasse. Let’s have a look at the huge mural on one of the outer walls of the building, which offers an idealised picture of life in a communist society. |
and many more...
