After a morning at Holzmarkt 25, we decided to go for a wander to a few places in the afternoon, starting with a return visit to the Brandenburg Gate, then over to Potsdamer Platz and finally to Kurfürstendamm, or Ku’damm for short.

As before, this gave me chance to jump on a Nextbike and sample a bit more of what Berlin has to offer for cycling while the others took public transport.

Riding to the Brandenburg Gate

First of all I was meeting the others at the Brandenburg Gate, as my partner wanted to visit the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism.

Instead of taking the most direct route along Unter den Linden, I decided on a longer, more meandering ride, starting in the historic Scheunenviertel and Spandauer Vorstadt neighbourhoods.

This route took me along largely quiet roads, which were pretty light in traffic. This was fortunate, as there wasn’t much in the way of cycling infrastructure. With high density and narrow streets, this area has a pleasant, welcoming feel, perfect for cycling and very walkable.

I soon arrived at the River Spree, where I crossed over to the other side via the Ebertsbrücke bridge. Once over, I continued along the river on Am Weidendamm, passing under Friedrichstraße station, once a border crossing point during the cold war.

After proceeding further along Am Weidendamm, I turned right onto Wilhelmstraße, then left into Pariser Platz where I parked my Nextbike and met the others. We then went for a pleasant wander around the Simsonweg area of the Tiergarten and to the memorial, which was fairly busy, but not too bad.

Riding to Potsdamer Platz

After we were done in the Tiergarten, we set off for Potsdamer Platz, an area once known for its nightlife, it then became no man’s land during the cold war and left empty for decades. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, it became Europe’s largest building site and is now filled with many large towers, and is home to the likes of Daimler-Benz and Sony.

Getting there from the Brandenburg Gate is just a short ride along Ebertstraße, which thankfully has a protected cycle path as the traffic along here was quite heavy.

The cycle path was actually pretty good, with a combination of asphalt and paved sections and included bus stop bypasses along the route.

It wasn’t long before I reached Potsdamer Platz, where I parked the Nextbike and met up with the others. We then went for a wander, looking at the sections of the Berlin Wall on display and heading into what used to be the Sony Center (now called Das Center) to avoid a shower.

Riding to Ku’damm

It’s a while I’d been around Kurfürstendamm (Ku’damm for short) area, not since our Interrailing trip in 2008, so we were keen to get over to the west and go for a wander.

Kurfürstendamm (which also includes Tauentzienstraße) is a world famous 3.5 km long shopping boulevard in the Charlottenburg district and home to many top fashion brands as well the famous KaDeWe department store.

Getting to Ku’damm from Potsdamer Platz involved carrying on along Potsdamer Straße, largely on a narrow footway level cycle paths, though with temporary cycle lanes and unprotected road sections.

I turned right onto Bülowstraße, which is a large streets with the elevated U2 U-Bahn line running down the middle. There’s something about streets with elevated railways, like the ones in here Berlin and in Paris. The decorative railway viaducts gives the streets a lot of character, in a way that elevated roads don’t. They’re also much more pleasant to ride on that underground lines.

Bülowstraße features wide parking-protected cycle lanes which appear to work quite well. While they mostly rely on paint and parked vehicles, there’s bollards before and after each of the turning, which help to stop the lanes from being driven on.

To get onto Ku’damm, I turned right onto An d. Urania for a short distance, which featured a narrow paved cycle path that’s typical for Berlin. I then turned left onto Kurfürstenstraße and made my way towards Ku’damm, on a mixture of paved cycle paths and temporary cycle lanes.

Arriving at the Berlin Zoo, I parked the Nextbike and went to meet the others. We then first of all made our way to the Bikini Berlin shopping mall to stop for coffee and cake. We’d heard about the shopping mall having views of the zoo, which sounded interesting.

Once recharged, we set off along Ku’damm, starting with the stunning Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was heavily damaged during the war, with the remains left intact, and a new modern church built next to it in 1961. I’ve never actually been to Coventry Cathedral, but from what I’ve seen, it has many similarities.

We then made our way along the boulevard, stopping in some of the shops and exploring the area. Ku’damm felt very reminiscent of London’s Oxford Street, though wider, with more greenery and not so traffic-choked.

Riding back

After our wander around Ku’damm, it was time to return to our Airbnb apartment. To get there, I took a more direct route than the one I came on. This included a fair amount of painted cycle lanes along Kantstraße and Budapester Straße, which were mostly tolerable, except for the unpleasant door-zone sections.

Things improved once I reached Hofjägerallee, where there’s footway-level cycle paths around the Tiergarten. Turning right at the Siegessäule (Victory Column), the cycle paths continued along Straße des 17. Juni, until I reached the Brandenburg Gate.

Now riding with a group of people, I made my way along Unter den Linden, which I’d done quite a few times already on our trip. Passing Alexanderplatz, I parked up the Nextbike and made my way to our apartment, stopping to pick up some delicious doughnuts on the way!

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