Berlin Photo Tour

Table Of Content:

• The Idea And Planning
• Day 1 – Monday
• Day 2 – Tuesday
• Day 3 – Wednesday
• Day 4 – Thursday
• Day 5 – Friday

The Idea And Planning

I have often thought about doing a photo tour, a trip over several days where I only take pictures. So far it has not happened for various reasons. Mainly it was the point that you like to spend your free time with your family. But this time it was possible, because I still had vacation days which I had to take until the end of the year and my family had no vacation at this time.

So I started to think about a photo tour. Where should I go at this time of the year? Then it turned out that a very good friend, who also likes to take pictures, has time and would like to go with me. After a short consideration it was clear that it should be a city trip. At first we had thought about postage in Portugal, but the flights were quite expensive and the cheaper ones only two days a week. Thus, the alternative Berlin became more interesting and my friend went directly to the main station to ask for cheap offers. A suitable and cheap hotel was also quickly found, and so the destination was fixed.

Now it was a matter of planning our goals in the city more precisely, and with the help of Google Maps I started to document them online. I remembered many of my visits to Berlin and therefore already had many places in my head, but there were also many areas of Berlin that I had not seen before and that were unknown to me. Further I found many suggestions from other photographers in the Internet and put all these data in the following map.

Berlin Photo Tour map by Ivan Andric

Since we wouldn’t be able to visit all the points on the map in a few days, we chose some favourites and wanted to decide spontaneously which locations to take. With that the basic planning was finished and we could prepare our photo equipment and look forward to the days in Berlin.

Day 1 – Monday

After some problems with our train connection, we arrived on time at midday in Berlin. At the main station in Berlin we got a five day ticket for the public transport and drove to our hotel. After we checked in our hotel rooms and freshened up a bit, we already started to our first photo walk. Since the sunset at this time of the year is already at 4 pm, we had to choose suitable photo locations for night shots. Our choice fell for the following locations:

• Potsdammer Platz
• Sony Center
• Brandenburger Toor

Running intensity: about 17.000 steps, 15 kilometers

Day 2 – Tuesday

On the first day we walked a lot and the cold in the evening was a bit exhausting. So we decided to start the second day with a plentiful breakfast. After that we have chosen the following locations for this day:

• Karl-Marx-Allee
• Cafe Moskau
• Tatra Advertising
• Strausberger Platz
• East Side Gallery (*)
• Mercedes Benz Arena
• Oberbaumbridge
• Viewpoint Molecule Man & Oberbaumbridge

Running intensity: about 21.000 steps, 18 kilometers

(*) Because of the many photos, I have decided to create a own photo gallery for the East Side Gallery photos.

Day 3 – Wednesday

How exhausting the second day was we realised that morning. The legs and the back hurt and additionally the heel of my hiking shoes broke. After breakfast I bought new sneakers and threw away the old hiking shoes. Since the weather was not very good, we decided to make a smaller round.

• Railway Station Friedrichstrasse
• Viewpoint Railway Station Friedrichstrasse
• Viewpoint Bode Museum
• Bode Museum
• New Museum

Running intensity: about 14.000 steps, 13 kilometers

Day 4 – Thursday

The new sneakers I had run in well yesterday and we were able to recover a bit. So we had enough energy to visit more locations today. It was a very long and successful day with many highlights until late in the evening.

• Olympia Stadium
• Olympia Bell Tower
• Drachenberg – Viewpoint Teufelsberg
• Siegessäule – Großer Stern
• Palace Belevue
• Reichstagsbuilding
• Bundeskanzleramt Building
• Bundestag Paul-Löbe Building
• Viewpoint Europaplatz
• Viewpoint Paul-Löbe & Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders Building
• Bebelplatz
• State Opera Unter den Linden
• Berliner Dom
• Viewpoint Berlin Television Tower – Neptun Fountain

Running intensity: about 23.500 steps, 20 kilometers

Day 5 – Friday

After a very exhausting but also very successful day, we slept a little longer and renounced to breakfast. Because our train home has already left at noon and we took something to eat at the station. We were very satisfied with the last days and I had taken over 3200 photos. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take some pictures. The viewpoint from the Park Inn Hotel with the beautiful view of the Berlin TV Tower was closed due to the weather. On some places, for example on the Gendarmenmarkt, Christmas markets were set up and blocked the view to the beautiful buildings. Berlin continues to build and renovate a lot and therefore some pictures could not be taken.

On my map there are still many points left that we could not visit. There will also be more locations in the future when some of the many sites are finished. Therefore this was certainly not my last visit to Berlin.

I can definitely say: For photographers Berlin is worth a trip.