Berlin 23: Fat Tire Tour of Berlin

Since we did our first Fat Tire Tour of Berlin back in 2008 before we had kids, I’ve often recommended doing a bike tour as a way getting familiar in a new city. Not only do you become familiar with the city’s key tourist destinations and history, you develop a certain geographic knowledge you can only get on a bike.

Setting off on a Fat Tire Tour back in 2008

Indeed, since that first bike tour, we’ve since done Fat Tire Tours of London and Paris, actually twice in Paris. I’ve also done two bike tours in Boston, on consecutive days while there with work, even if it did get a bit tiring hearing about Paul Revere’s midnight ride and how the Americans beat the British!

Being back in Berlin, we were keen to go on another Fat Tire Tour, this time with the kids, even if it covered familiar ground (quite literally). So on our sixth day in the city, after a morning at the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Straße, we headed over to Fat Tire’s shop at the bottom of the Berliner Fernsehturm (TV Tower).

If you’re unfamiliar with bike tours, it’s pretty much what the name suggests, a tour of a city on bikes, with a guide to take you round and show you interesting stuff.

In the case of Fat Tire Tours, they originally had American style beach cruiser type bikes, think Schwinn or Electra bikes. Nowadays, the bikes are more inspired by beach cruisers, but they still have the fat tyres, they’d have to really!

Outside Fat Tire Tours, bikes parked ready for our tour

When we went on our first Fat Tire Tour, they also said they specialise in having native English speakers who have in-depth knowledge of the city and its history. Though after some of the so-called facts our guide came out with in Paris last year, I very much doubt the latter!

After turning up at the shop, using the facilities, getting sized up for an appropriate bike and meeting our guide, we set off on our bike tour. It wasn’t long before we stopped, just at the other side of Alexanderplatz, outside the Rotes Rathaus, Berlin’s town hall.

Now Fat Tire Tours will be pleased to hear I won’t be giving away all their secrets, my memory is way too poor to remember much in the way of facts. If you want to know more, you’ll just need to get over to Berlin and get on a tour yourself!

We then made our way over to Bebelplatz, where we were told the history of some of the marvellous building in the square as well as of the Nazi book burning in 1933 and the memorial below the ground.

Looking down at the Memorial to May 10, 1933 Nazi Book Burning

Next we criss-crossed our way to Checkpoint Charlie, the famous former border crossing between the east and west and an incredibly popular tourist destination. We’re not too above ourselves to join in with the other tourists get a selfie in front of the checkpoint.

From there, we made our way to Niederkirchnerstraße, past the Weltballon that you often see in the sky and stopped outside the Topography of Terror Museum and Ministry of Aviation building. As you might expect, at this point the guide talked about the Nazi history of the Ministry of Aviation and the Cold War history of Berlin.

Our youngest riding in front of the Berlin Wall

From there, we made our way through Potsdamer Platz to reach the location of Hitler’s bunker on what is a pretty nondescript street, with apartment blocks built on the location. Here, you hear about how for years there was nothing here to indicate what used to be at this location, for fear of it becoming a far right shrine.

It would be nice to say surely people have learnt from what happened in those dark days and that kind of thing wouldn’t happen. But this is 2025 and the far right AfD party has just won 20% of the vote in the snap German election and we’re seeing a lot of parallels to the 1930s, not just in Germany.

On a somewhat lighter note, our collective family memory of this bike ride is when our tour guide told us the story of Hitler’s bunker, while placing his hand on the mouth of a bin and leaving it there for some time. It’s funny what stays with you, though I’d hate to think what stayed with him on his hand!

From there, we continued a short distance to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. At this point, we had opportunity to get off the bikes and explore through the memorial, with its large concrete blocks of different heights and undulating ground, which is intended to be disorientating.

At the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Next up was a short ride to the Reichstag, then through a small section of the Tiergarten and onto the Brandenburg Gate. We heard a little about the history at each point, while getting the chance for more photo opportunities, with the guide offering to take photos.

From the Brandenburg Gate, we made our along Unter den Linden, until we reached the Humboldt Forum. The guide told us about the building of this modern fake of the original palace as well as its immediate predecessor, the GDR’s Palace of the Republic.

Indeed, on our previous Fat Tire Tour of Berlin in 2008, the old Palace of the Republic was in the process of being demolished, with the guide telling us about how they had boat tours in the flooded basement, following reunification.

From there, we made our way along Unter den Linden and back to the Fat Tire Tours shop, where our ride finished. This was a relatively short afternoon tour. I remember our previous tour was longer and involved a more extensive ride through the Tiergarten, where we stopped for lunch.

Arriving back at the Berliner Fernsehturm (TV Tower)

It was really lovely riding around Berlin as a group on a sunny August afternoon. While it’s not The Netherlands, I’ve found Berlin a pretty pleasant place to cycle round, and even better doing it as a group.

As I’ve said, I highly recommend getting on a bike tour when you visit somewhere new and maybe for somewhere you’ve been before. Maybe with Fat Tire Tours, though there’s plenty of alternatives.