Tour de Bear

Start your day sightseeing through Treptower Park. It’s beautiful, vast, has the River Spree running through, and is home to the impressive Russian War Memorial. The memorial is massive, like some relic from a sci-fi flick, a la StarGate. Scenes from Russian war history play out on stone panels along the sides of the garden, while a momentous statue of a soldier stands almost hovering atop rows of trees.

When you feel the first pangs of hunger and begin to long for a good coffee and a small snack (as in a powerbar) head over to Kreuzberg to see the guys at Keirin. Keirin has logged four years now as the number one stop for everyone interested in track bikes.

Once you have seen all the steel candy, get down to Potsdamer Platz, the very center of the city. It may not be the last word in architecture, but it is literally the city’s center. Ride right through it and you will find yourself in the Tiergarten, a park of parks. The River Spree runs right through it, and there’s some great sights to be seen within. Or, the perfect place for pit-stop chillaxin.

Keep on riding straight up the street by the name of 17th of June. You’ll pass the Siegessäule and the Charlottenburger Tor, both remnants of a time long past, but magnificent to look at. Once passed the University campus you will see a big roundabout at the Ernst Reuter Platz where you swing a left to enter the “old” City West, and to find the Kurfürstendamm. Before Mitte started blowing up, this long street held the best addresses in Berlin, with the famous KaDeWe department store on its lower end (where the street is called “Tauentzien”), and on the higher end you’ll see Chanel, Bulgari and Hermès.

Pass all these Boutiques and keep on riding up all the way to Halensee. Now you could go all the way down to Zehlendorf and Nikolasssee, but honestly this is only something for the passionate road racer. It will take you alongside some beautiful mansions though.

So get back and find Kantstrasse. You’ve probably worked up a mean appetite by now and you can dine in style at either “Good friends,” (excellent chinese food), or next door at “Kuchi,” cooking up japanese fusioin food.

If you you can hold off a bit longer, you might want to ease down further on Kantstrasse and find your way over to Kreuzberg again into the Dieffenbachstrasse 62. This is where you’ll get the best pizza in town. It’s canadian, and it’s so tasty that you will thank me for having done that route, and you can have another slice. I urge you to try the Maple/Chily Sirup on an already spicy slice of “all you can meat”. It will bring tears to your eyes, it’s that good.