Metravel city quest
City Berlin: free walking route “quest: along the Berlin Wall” along the sights. 9 points. Approximately 2 h 30 min. Quests and legends - straight from your
For twenty-eight years, Berlin was two cities at once. On the night of 13 August 1961, a wall suddenly rose through a living city: first barbed wire, then concrete, watchtowers and a death strip. It cut through streets, squares, houses and families. Neighbours found themselves on opposite sides, windows were bricked up, and the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of all Germany, became trapped on the dividing line, in no man's land, where nobody could approach from east or west.
On 9 November 1989, the Wall was opened, and the city rushed to stitch itself back together. The concrete was broken up for souvenirs and the death strip built over, but the Wall's line was not erased: it was set into the paving. A double row of cobblestones now runs through the whole centre, with cast-iron plaques reading ‘Berliner Mauer’ and bearing two dates. You walk across an elegant square and suddenly find a seam beneath your feet: the Wall stood here.
Today you will follow this seam through the city. Starting at the gate trapped on the dividing line, you will cross the Wall's line itself, head up to the Reichstag, go down to the city's heaviest memory, and finish beside a little green man who outlived both East Germany and the Wall and became all Berlin's favourite.
What to do: 1) Read the story and task at each stop. 2) Find the place on the map and walk to it. 3) Look around and answer the question.
This walking route is about four kilometres long, almost entirely along boulevards and pedestrian squares. We start on Pariser Platz, in front of the Brandenburg Gate's eastern façade. Let's go!
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
You are standing before Germany's chief symbol. Architect Carl Gotthard Langhans built the gate in 1788–1791, modelled on the entrance to the Athenian Acropolis: massive sandstone with twelve Doric columns.
Do not hurry away from the gate: first look down. A double row of cobblestones, noticeably darker than the surrounding paving, runs across the square and around the gate.
Walk north from the gate, and in a couple of minutes the heavy bulk of the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, will rise on your left. Architect Paul Wallot built it in 1884–1894 for the German Empire's Reichstag.
An optional stop if you want to see the city's seam from above and look inside its parliament. Norman Foster's glass dome above the debating chamber is open to everyone, a rare chance for visitors to walk directly above a working parliament.
Return to the Brandenburg Gate and walk south along the Tiergarten wall. Soon a huge grey field opens on your right, an entire city block planted with concrete slabs.
Now head onto the grand boulevard Unter den Linden, ‘Under the Linden Trees’, and walk east into former East Berlin. This is the city's main historic axis: linden trees, palaces and the university.
Turn south from Unter den Linden for a couple of blocks and you will reach Gendarmenmarkt, which many Berliners consider the city's loveliest square. It was planned as a stage set: two nearly identical twin cathedrals at the sides and a theatre between them.
Return to Unter den Linden and follow it to the end, towards the river. The boulevard brings you onto Museum Island, a patch of land in the middle of the Spree filled with great museums.
From the cathedral, cross the Spree and walk north to lively Hackescher Markt, with its cafés, trams and crowds. At every crossing here, you will meet former East Berlin's most charming souvenir: the Ampelmann, the little man on the pedestrian traffic light.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.