Berlin 23: Riding around Mitte and Tiergarten

After a few days in Berlin with no cycling, I was feeling the need to get on a bike and explore. So on our third proper day in the city, I headed out with our eldest to find some Nextbikes and go for a ride.

Upon finding some Nextbikes, I was surprised to see there’s been a few changes since my last visit to Berlin in November 2022. For a start, the bikes were now docked in a docking station. This was new, as previously, Nextbike was dockless, suffering many of the issues that dockless schemes tend to have.

Nextbike with new dock attachment, much better than Starling Bank Bikes in Manchester

The bikes also looked newer and better condition than they did previously and appear to have been retrofitted with attachments to lock them into the docks. The locking mechanism was far superior to Manchester’s own Starling Bank Bikes, with the bikes easily guided into the docks and there were minimal issues.

Setting off, we headed along Unter den Linden towards the Brandenburg Gate. Riding along here is a bit sketchy and there’s not much in the way of protected cycling infrastructure. There’s a quite a few painted cycle lanes, some in the door zone. Then there’s long sections where you have to share the bus lane or mix with general traffic.

Riding in the bus lane on Unter den Linden

As with so many streets in Berlin, there’s easily enough space on Unter den Linden to provide something better for cycling. It’s clear that the local government are more interested in putting motor traffic first.

Fortunately, there isn’t that much traffic along Unter den Linden and it is a wide street, so cycling along there was manageable. I’ve certainly been on much worse.

We were planning to meet the others at the Brandenburg Gate, and found a suitable docking station in Pariser Platz behind it. After having a wander round the gate and taking a few photos, we decided to carry on, though this time we thought it might be fun to get some ebikes to ride.

We located some Tier ebikes, which I’d used before and still had an account with, so seemed like the best option. Starting off from the Brandenburg Gate, we made our way along Straße des 17. Juni towards the Siegessäule (Victory Column).

Straße des 17. Juni has decent, if a little narrow footway level cycle paths, with a smooth asphalt surface. This made it quite a pleasant street to cycle along, despite higher levels of traffic.

After arriving at the Siegessäule, we decided to head into the Tiergarten on our bikes and have a wander. There were some nice routes through the park, with a combination of sealed and loose surfaces, which were all well maintained.

Group riding electric scooters in the Tiergarten

As it was a bit of a drab Monday, the park was pretty quiet, so we could ride round unobstructed, which was nice. Even with their pretty unforgiving tyres, the Tier ebikes were lots of fun to ride around. I still don’t own an ebike, so it’s always a bit of a novelty riding one, with that sensation that you really are flying.

After our ride around, we ended up at the Brandenburg Gate again, and went for more of a wander, including stopping at some of the memorials nearby. We were then back on the bikes, swapping back to the Nextbikes as the Tier bikes are a bit too expensive to ride for long periods, even if they are more fun!

Mini hotrod tour in front of the Brandenburg Gate

We were now heading back down Unter den Linden towards where we came from. We took a detour, heading through Bebelplatz and onto Französische Straße, which becomes Werderscher Markt near the river.

We then passed the Humboldt Forum, which is Berlin’s newest landmark, at the location of the historic Berliner Schloss, which was bombed during the WWII and replaced with the modernist Palace of the Republic by the former GDR in the 1950s.

After reunification, the Palace of the Republic was no longer in use and was riddled with massive amounts of asbestos, so it was decided to demolish it. The demolition was in progress during our first visit to Berlin in 2008, where one our tour guides talked about the basement being flooded and used for boat tours at one point.

The building of the Humboldt Forum in the style of the Berliner Schloss was not without its controversies. Many former East Germans were angry to see the Palace of the Republic being demolished, then there was concerns about recreating the old Berliner Schloss, and to top it off, delays in construction.

We continued across the River Spree, past the Marx-Engels Forum and turned right onto Spandauer Straße just before the Rotes Rathaus (Berlin town hall). From there, we came back across the Spree, turned left onto Fischerinsel and across the Spreekanal.

We made our way along Wallstraße, which runs parallel to the Spreekanal, before crossing the Spree for a final time, as we headed towards the Alexa shopping mall, to meet up with the others. There wasn’t much to see in the way of cycling infrastructure, mainly just some painted lanes and the odd suicide lane at junctions.

This ride around Mitte and Tiergarten was just the first taste of much more cycling during our trip in Berlin, largely by myself. Further rides involved trips to the Zoo to the west and Tempelhofer Feld to the south, I’ll be covering these in future posts.