City guided tours in Berlin & Potsdam

Your City guided tour: The German art historian and publicist Karl Scheffler (1869-1951) made the following observation in his book ‘Berlin – ein Stadtschicksal’ (Berlin – A City Destiny) published in 1910 (freely translated):
“Berlin doesn’t want love from its residents. While deep down the soul of the city is not national, it is also not sentimental. As if with a witty word of self-irony this toughly determined one-off city helps itself to get over the hidden tragedy of its existence (…) over the tragedy of a destiny, which makes Berlin (…) a city condemned forever to becoming and never being.” (S. 266 f.; from: Wikipedia)

Try over the course of this approximately three-hour guided tour from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate to form your own impression. The route through the historic centre of the German capital leads us past the top ten places associated very closely with the city’s long history, which compared with that of other major cities has without doubt been especially full of change: Alexanderplatz, Nikolaiviertel, the Berlin City Palace construction site, Museum Island, Unter den Linden, Gendarmenmarkt, Wilhelmstrasse, Brandenburg Gate and more. The tour’s time line stretches from the first mention of the adjacent twin town of Cölln in the year 1237 to the present day.

Your private city tour in Berlin

Your city guided tour: Over the course of this approximately two-hour walk on Berlin’s Museum Island, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999, I will explain to you how you can trace the different socio-political developments from the architecture of the individual buildings and indeed also the attitude of the respective rulers. The walk, therefore, looks at architecture as a mirror of social realities and change. The tour begins with an explanation of the reconstruction and intended use of the Berlin City Palace as the future Humboldt-Forum. There then follow two short talks as an aside – on columns (development since ancient Greek / Roman times, including the function of classical order attributed to them) and on the creation of the museum genre (the purpose of such establishments up to the present day). This provides the background to the tour’s main areas of emphasis outlined above. The main focus of the guided tour is then a walk passing the individual buildings in the order in which they were built to illustrate the architecture as a mirror of social realities and developments.

Your private guided city tour in Berlin

Your city guided tour: Rising rents, the fact that even people on average salaries are being forced to move out of the city centre, the constantly growing need for affordable homes – these are hotly debated topics in Berlin politics and society. Prenzlauer Berg, on the one hand almost mythically romanticised as the epitome of a hip and trendy district, on the other the target of mockery and derision (e.g. about Swabian ‘Block Wardens’, who would ideally like to introduce obligatory cleaning of hallways and pavements here as well), is the prime example of a development that is known as ‘gentrification’. We go in search of evidence from Senefelder Platz to the ‘Kulturbrauerei’ listed events complex on a walk of around two and a half hours around Germany’s largest contiguous district of the late 19th century period known as the ‘Gründerzeit’.

Your private tour in Berlin