As you already know I was traveling to Berlin last week. This time I discovered a super interesting sight: The Underground of Berlin!
Since 1997 there is a group of people that are specialized in discovering new underground treasures. Once new sights are found they renovate and prepare them to provide guided tours for the public. The group is called "Berliner Unterwelten e.V." (engl: Berlins underworlds) and celebrated their 20th birthday a few weeks ago.
The most famous tour is the bunker tour. You enter an actual bunker right below the Metro Station Gesundbrunnen that by the way this is also the place where you can get tickets and information for all this tours.
The meeting point is the selling office on the surface. From there you will be directed to some inconspicuous door right next to the metro, that you wouldn´t have noticed walking by.
Every tour includes two guides: One is explaining and answering questions and the other one is looking out for the people. He is responsible if somebody gets lost in the tunnel labyrinth. - So at all time they take care of you. No need to get afraid.
They told us that at every time of the 90min tour we could have been at the surface within 1 minute if we want to.
I have to admit that it is a bit scary in the beginning to walk through this tunnel system. The last time I went on an underground tour was in Edinburgh and that was really spooky.
This time the atmosphere was different. The guides where able to give us a very clear image of how these bunkers where used, how many people where in here and how the feeling was.
You also get a lot of background information about the world war and how the people managed their daily life in it. Both during the war and after. In the end you even get to see a little museum with things people used at that time, that where found in the bunkers and around the city.
The bunker at Gesundbrunnen has several floors and is still very authentic. During the tour walking from one room to the other you can hear the Metro passing by and feel the wind of the ventilation system. It is hardly imaginable to be here hearing sirens and bombers, restrained with hundreds of people!
You get a very interesting 90min tour, that is offered in 7 languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch and Danish.
They already got more tours to offer besides the tour I just described. Click on the tour to get the full description of their website:
- Tour 1: Dark Worlds: Experience WW2 bombing raids through the eyes of civilians
- Tour 2 - From Flak Towers to Mountains of Debris: Explore the devastated ruins of a WW2 fortress
- Tour 3 - Subways and Bunkers in the Cold War: Prepare for a nuclear war with the people of West Berlin
- Tour M - Under the Berlin Wall: Hear the stories of the people who tunnelled to freedom.
- Tour F -The »Fichtebunker« Time Capsule: Discover 130 years of history under one roof
Here a few impressions:
For me this experience was a big highlight!! It is a shame that you are not allowed to take your own pictures during the tour. That´s why I searched you some from the internet, so you get a better idea from it.
In the end I will put you this link from the 20. Birthday of this organization and the official website link.
The video is in German though.. maybe you still wanna see it because of the impressions :) - I couldn´t find it in English.
http://www.berliner-unterwelten.de/en.html
I hope yo liked this post and I am always grateful for every Upvote, Follow & Resteem because you are supporting my world travel with it and I will be able to report you from all this places :)
For more pictures and German text click here / Für mehr Bilder und deutschen Text bitte hier klicken.
Cheers, Liz