My Cycling Diary: Day 11 : Wed, Aug 24, 2011 - 74.90 mi [Cycling] Finsterwalde to Berlin

Day 11 : Finsterwalde to Berlin

Day 11 Stats :
Distance = 70.02 Miles
Time = 05:50:29 hrs
Ave Speed = 11.99 mph
Elevation = 1567 ft
Calories = 3508 Calories
Max Speed = 22.3 mph
Max Height = 467 ft
Min Height = 112 ft

Tour Stats
Distance = 1005.85 miles
Time = 84:01:07 hrs
Ave Speed = 11.97 mph
Total Elevation = 33692 ft
Total Calories = 52431

I had 70 miles to complete to reach Berlin and I would also be completing 1000 miles for the tour. I had thoroughly enjoyed my extra day and I was really glad I stopped in Finsterwalde even if it did mean 1 less day in berlin.
The Town is called the Singing Town and it has a reputation for being really friendly and my Hotel was really good - I enjoyed a lovely meal in the garden and a few beers to celebrate - It's hard to put into words but tonight I knew I was going to make Berlin ... and that is the first time I could honestly say that !

I set off North along another Strassen Schaden (Uneven road) which was barriered off - fortunately it did go through and before long I was on the Bundestrasse 96 which was a straight road North to Berlin.The road was beautiful lined with large mature trees and I did have a laugh when I saw a sign showing a car crashing into a tree to presumably tell you not to drive into a tree !

The road lead to the first reasonably sized town which was Luckau and even though it was only 20 miles away I was pretty sore aand tired and started to wonder if I would make it to Berlin today after all - I bought some drinks at a garage and pressed on North.

I was now cycling through beautiful but quite thick forests and I passed through Zutzen, Baruth & Neuhof all of which were about 7 miles apart and separated by dead straight road on which the wagons were starting to build. Just after Neuhof a white van decided to overtake a Wagon heading towards me - Immediately I thought "This is going to be tight" so I braked and hopped my bike off the road onto the forest verge....

The van didn't make it back in in time & would have totalled me had I not seen it coming !!
The Wagon driver went mental and started blaring his horn at the van as the van tried to speed off from him into the distance - I suspect a chase was on :-)

I passed a monument to the war with two russian tanks sitting on plinths alongside the B96 road and stopped to take a picture. Shortly afterwards I was at Zossen which is pretty much the start of Berlin albeit 20 miles away. Another 7 Miles and I was crossing the Autobahn south of Berlin that is the Berliner Ring motorway.

I then picked my way via minor roads and cycle paths into the City centre and my route took me down Wilhelmstrasse and past Checkpoint Charlie from there I went straight through the non traffic section past the British Embassy which lead to Unter den Linden. A left turn and up to the top of the street and I was there 'THE BRANDENBURG GATES' - my symbolic journey's end.

I cycled under the gate and decided a photo is required. The place was crowded and I saw an Italian family on a tandem who had cycled to Berlin - they were being swamped and had almost a press corp surrounding them taking pictures. I wandered looking for someone who could speak English but the place was surprisingly devoid of anyone I could ask. The Italian celebrations continued ... I felt well pretty deflated having 2 minutes ago been on such a high - the tiredness and cold was starting to cut in - I continued to look - I asked some Koreans but they didn't seem to understand - eventually I found two Japanese lads who did take my picture - I muttered Paris, Prague, Berlin, Bicycle and pointed to my bike but I think the significance of my achievement didn't register - I was to celebrate my achievement in solitude.

I cycled back down Unter den Linden, down Wilhelmstrasse to Checkpoint Charlie where I turned left onto Zimmerstrasse where my Hotel for the next 2 nights was - As it turned out Zimmerstrasse is actually the route of the former Berlin wall and my Hotel was actually on a corner of the wall - the building itself forming the boundary with East Berlin

Route :
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Photograph :

10 Miles : Near Pahlsdorf these goats got really friendly and
came across to me to let me take their photograph.

12 Miles : Don't you just love German Road Signs

12 Miles : A close up - this sign had me in stitches :-)

12 Miles : Oh No Disaster I should have heeded the
warnings - I've gone & crashed my bike into a Tree
Shame they didn't have a sign to warn me !!!

38 Miles : Just near Muckendorf still on the Bundestrasse 96
came across this monument with 2 soviet tanks on plinths
by the roadside.

46 Miles : Just before Zossen on the outskirts of Berlin I stopped
in the forest to take a closer look and as you can see it's pretty
dense in there.

46 Miles : In the forest still - Looking Up & thise trees are high
perfect to wrap in ribbon & hang hoops from !

18 miles : This is the first sign for Berlin that I had seen
that wasn't via a Motorway so I had to stop & take a
picture - I was 3 miles south of Luckau & about 45 miles
south of Berlin - It almost brought a smile to my face :-)

52 Miles : I reached the A10 which is the Berlinerring -
The Berlin Ring Road - well it does bypass Berlin but it was
still 18 miles south of the City Centre.

55 Miles : Double Take
Och Aye I see it now - not quite in Scotland !

70 Miles : Journey's End - 1007 Miles from the Eifel Tower to
the Brandenburg Gates (via Prague !)

Berlin : this is just behind the Reichstag on the River Spree

Berlin : The Reichstag

Berlin : I found Martin Luther just near the Tower at the
Alexanderplatz

Berlin : A close up of the dome on the Reichstag

Berlin : The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
also known as the Holocaust Memorialis a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust,
designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold.
It consists of a 19,000 square metres (4.7 acres) site
covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae",
arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field.
The stelae are 2.38 m (7 ft 10 in) long, 0.95 m (3 ft 1 in) wide
and vary in height from 0.2 to 4.8 m (8 in to 15 ft 9 in).
According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce
an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to
represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.

Berlin : A clock in Alexanderplatz which shows the time
in every Time Zone in the world

Berlin : A piece of the Berlin Wall outside the
Checkpoint Charlie museum

Berlin : Checkpoint Charlie

Berlin : The Brandenburg Gates

Berlin : A colourful wall on a building near the Alexanderplatz.

Berlin : Berlin TV studios and 3 very famous world leaders :-
George Bush, Helmut Cole & Mikael Gorbachev who were in
power when the wall came down in 1989