Blog Berlin Wall part 1

Paul starts his very first cycle trip after oghm-stone.com was launched. Paul hits the mean streets of Berlin and starts to tackle the beast from the east.. The Berlin wall. Yes, but only the first part of the Berlin wall. Is he mad? Some would say yes but he lives life on the edge.

How to get there

If you want to get there, press here. When the page loads, in the bubble to the left of text ‘Berlin Wall part 1’, you will see a white arrow. Press that white arrow to load google maps to find the best route to navigate to the start. You can press here also to be brought to S-Bahnhof Hermsdorf on google maps. The S-Ban is a fast way to get around Berlin and you can bring your bike also (You need a ticket for this)

What do you need?

• Sun cream
• Water
• Packed lunch.

As you can see from the pics, you will be going through quite an open area of Berlin/Brandenburg. When I did this route, I did not come many shops. There are plenty of benches along the way for you to sit down and enjoy your food.

What’s the route like?

You are on tarmic pretty much 99% of the time. For the first 60% you are on a walk/cycle route so no cars(yay!!).

The first part of the route you go beside a lake and soon enought you'll make your way into eichwerder-steg .If traversing through a swamp and surviving is your thing, then you need to check this out.

For the next 5k or so, you will be outside the city of Berlin, traversing through open fields and bushy areas. You'll eventually pass a small village Blankenfelde on the left where believe it or not, a great hurler originates from.

Once you pass the open field, you’ll start to notice the high rise flats to the left and right and eventually you’ll start to follow the S-ban line towards the city center. This is the narrowest part of the route and it can be difficult to overtake people. Up to this point though you'll still be on the walk/cycle path so no cars yet(yay!!).

Once you come close to the soviet memorial sowjetisches-ehrenmal I would definitely check it out. If you thought the soviets were good at building walls, they were even better at building monuments.

The route specifically for walking/cycling comes to an end around here and we more or less have to go on the roads from here on out. Once you get back onto the route, the next stop is burgerpark-pankow This is a nice peaceful park where you can stop for a coffee/ice cream. At this stage, we will try to follow the line of bricks on the ground. These bricks mark where the wall used to stand.

You are getting near the finish line now. The last point on this route is the now famous The Bornholmer Straße border crossing. The Bornholmer Straße border crossing played the historic role of being the first border crossing to be opened during the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. You will see parts of the real wall here also.