Europe Trip #9: Welcome to Berlin - Fernsehturm

The final adventure for today was a visit to the Fernsehturm or TV Tower. I saw this as I went around the Hop On, Hop Off bus, and this was one of the places I hopped off. The viewing platform is 203 meters up, and the lifts take 40 seconds at up to 6 meters/ second [around a 1000' per minute if my maths is correct?].

On purchasing a ticket, you are given an estimated entry period consisting of a 10 minute timeframe - in my case, around an hour after ticket purchase - and if you miss the allocated time, then tough bikkies.

Despite a little bit of haze in the area, I still gor a great view around the city, and wow, it's big! Following are 4 pictures - the first of the tower itself, the second and third are general photos. The fourth shows the Brandenburg Tor and Siegessäule [blue and red arrows respectively]. Keep in mind that the distance between those arrows is almost 3kms!


As you can tell, it has been a busy first day! Tomorrow I hope to walk to the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin [German Museum of Technology Berlin]. It should be about a 25 minute walk and it contains several sections, including an aviation section which I am particularly looking forward to.

Europe Trip #7: Welcome to Berlin - Siegessäule

After visiting the Brandenburg Tor and doing a scenic bus trip [which included a visit to the TV tower - coming up soon], some idiot [I was by myself... :-)] decided that despite the mini-heatwave, that today was a good day to walk half the length of the Tiergarten [next post] to visit the Siegessäule, or Victory Column. This monument was built to commemorate Prussian victories against France, Denmark and Austria. If I heard the commentary on the bus correctly, there's just over 1kg of gold on there... might be worth visiting one evening? Maybe not!

The first photo shows the monument, the second highlights the detail on the lower landing, and the third picture... well, that's one of the entrances to the walkway under the road to the monument! Even their subway entrances are flash over here! :-)