Berlin City Tour

We start at Pariser Platz, next to the Brandenburg Gate. Your guide tells you how this 1791 gate lost its quadriga to Napoleon, how it was locked in the death strip during the Cold War, and why in 1989 it became the symbol of German reunification.

We tour the Holocaust memorial, 2,711 concrete blocks designed by Peter Eisenman without a single explanatory plaque. Your guide explains why it was conceived this way and what feeling it seeks to evoke when walking among the blocks.

We stop at the place where Hitler's bunker was, today under an unmarked parking lot. Your guide tells you about the last days of the Third Reich and Hitler's suicide on April 30, 1945.

We passed by the enormous building that Göring ordered built for the Luftwaffe, one of the few Nazi buildings that survived the bombings. Your guide explains how the RDA reused it and why the workers' revolt of June 17, 1953 began against it.

We walk along one of the original sections of the Berlin Wall that still stand, on the site where the Gestapo and SS headquarters were located. Your guide explains how the Nazi repressive apparatus worked and what the border strip was like.

We arrived at the most famous border crossing of the Cold War. Your guide tells you how in October 1961 Soviet and American tanks were face-to-face for sixteen hours, and the leaks and spies that made this place famous.

We visited what many consider the most beautiful square in Berlin, with its twin churches, the German and the French, and the Concert Hall in the center. Your guide explains how the French Huguenots who fled to Prussia changed the city.

We ended in the Opera State Square, where on May 10, 1933, Nazi students burned about 20,000 books. Your guide shows you the memorial of the empty library under the ground and recommends what to do for the rest of your trip.