Walking Tours:
As stated on our hostel page, we strongly recommend for our English-speaking guests to join one of the excellent walking tours, especially when you are a first-time visitor.
Daily pick-ups from the Circus are offered by: http://www.brewersberlintours.com/
Other recommendable walking-and bike-tours are:
Mosaic Tours (www.mosaictours.org)
Mosaic Tours gives non-profit English tours of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The benefits go to Amnesty International and back to the memorial.
Insider Tours (www.insidertour.com)
Fat Tire Bike Tours (fattirebiketoursberlin.com)
Berlin Walks (www.berlinwalks.com)
New Berlin Tours (www.newberlintours.com)
besides those there are a lot of others, usually concentrating on more specialised subjects, here some examples:
The private galleries are doing organized, irregular tours through the extremely vibrant gallery scene of Berlin, inquire under www.berliner-galerien.de
Ansichtssachen is concentrating on urban developments, neighbourhood-changes in the last years, socialist architecture www.ansichtssachen-berlin.de
Stattreisen, famous and experienced. Some of their tours: Potsdamer Square (man, myth, mutation), Prussia: palaces and politics; Fascism: occupation of a city. Contacts here under www.stattreisen.berlin.de
The Kulturbüro Berlin is concentrating on cultural and social aspects such as diplomatic representations in Berlin, cultural infrastructure in neighbourhoods, Jewish life, www.stadtverfuehrung.de
All these companies are very flexible and can arrange tours according to your interests in all major languages.
Bus Tours:
For those who don't want to walk, or can't, Berlin has several Bustours on offer as well.
We recommend the independentbus tour from Jaunts. They don't just go to the big sights but also include information on squads and markets in Berlin. You can book you own tour here:
Of course there are a lot of different tours, all of them have a multi-language service. Decide for yourself
Berolina Sightseeing www.berolina-berlin.com
BVB www.bvb.net
Berliner Bären Stadtrundfahrt www.sightseeing.de
Guide Friday www.berlin-city-tour.de
Bus lines 100 and 200: Create your own bus tour with these public transportation bus lines. They run along all the major sights and are designed for self guided bus tours. You can get off at any stop, and it is cheap! www.bvg.de
Ship Tours:
One of the best ways of cruising through Berlin is by ship. The Spree River is passing by nearly all sights, and so do the ships. Scenic, recommendable! Also, you can buy your tickets on reception:
Panorama-S-Bahn:
The S-Bahn, one of Berlins public transport carriers, is running a pretty funny panorama train, all glass, bar, suitable for wheelchairs, can be booked for tours and has a regular schedule as well. Info at under www.s-bahn-berlin.de ?Sonderzüge?, or by phone +49-30-29 74 38 62
Special Interest:
Of course, nearly all museums offer tours through their exhibitions, you can contact them usually through their web pages (see Museums and sights), we just want to recommend some specific ones:
- The German-Russian War Museum in Karlshorst gives you an idea about the suffering the second World War brought to Russian territory and the Russian people. Tour contact +49-30-50 15 08 10
- Topography of Terror uses the authentic site to explain the tools (Gestapo, SS ) of the Nazi-Dictatorship to prepare and conduct daily terror, tour contact +49-30-25 48 67 03
- For those interested in the communist dictatorship in East Germany, there are 2 authentic places worth seeing, the high-security prison Berlin-Hohenschönhausen (www.gedenkstaette-hohenschoenhausen.de), tour contacts +49-30-98 60 82 30, (the tours are usually done by former prisoners themselves) and the Stasi-exhibition, explaining the unique and perverse system of a dictatorship based on observation, permanent, unlimited observation of every detail of your private and public life, tour contacts under +49-30-22 41 74 70
