Each year in October the city of Berlin illuminates most prominent places, monuments and tourist sights. Artists create special illuminations and light installations, parks shine in different colors, even streets are illuminated. It is an event that makes you almost feel like christmas has been rescheduled to October. Millions of visitors and locals get outside and stroll around the main spots of Berlin. So did we – on our own little lightseeing tour organized by the bike community Fahrtwind-Berlin.

Pictures by Stefan Kaz.

Every last Friday of the month people come together to give a statement: That the streets belong to everyone and that they are not only made for cars. They take their bikes and go for a ride through town. Without any leader or route. It’s about the love of cycling and the passion to bikes. And it’s about becoming a mass that is big enough to dominate traffic. Last night it worked out. More than one hundred bikers of all ages took over the streets of Berlin and for just a couple of hours it seemed that this city is a bike town where you grab your bicycle and know: Today there’s no car that might hit me, today I do not have to smell exhaust fumes. Today I will meet people on bikes that will smile at me and give me the feeling of being part of a movement, making the world just a little bit better.

Take a look at the pictures of last night’s Critical Mass in Berlin and take part in the next one! Thanks to Stefan for the nice images that you will also find on Flickr.

Wow, there has been quite some workload in the last few weeks. As you might have seen we have put up a headquarter for FindingBerlin-Tours – also being the first big offline product of FindingBerlin. So stop by at the RAW-Temple in Friedrichshain and you will definitely find one of our crew!

However, creating a graffiti box is not really the main goal of this project. We want you to enjoy an unforgettable tour around Berlin – that’s where we are aiming at. And this goal is evolving. I have to admit that all tours needed to be created from scratch. There did not exist any itineraries or guidebooks we could rely on. Actually, it has always been in my head – the perfect tour for a Berlin-visitor who wants to find out more in this inspiring city than just the main hotspots. Today I finally had the chance to record a rough route of our first main tour.

To give a little overview about what is going to happen soon: There will be two tours starting in about 2 weeks. One will be offered on a regular basis – probably three times a week – and the route will basically stay fixed. The other one, our “FindingBerlin tour” is connected to the blog findingberlin.com and discovers all the place we have been writing about. Obviously this tour will change continuosly as the blog emerges. Let’s give you a little more detail.

1st tour: “Finding Worlds of Berlin” 

If you ask a Berliner where he/she is from you will get an answer of the “Kiez” – a suburb – he/she is living in. We, who all live here, know that you only need to walk (or ride your bike)  two blocks further and you will find yourself in a completely new world. A world where people dress and talk different, where houses look different, where life is different. And most important, where you actually feel like being in a different city. On our first tour we will show you three of those worlds.

The main “world”, or Kiez as the Berliners say, will be Kreuzberg. I assure you that you will be surprised how unique and still multi-facetted this little suburb actually is! We will have a chat with an original “Kreuzberger” and ride through the area “36″, one main district of Kreuzberg. There will be plenty stuff to see and talk about – I am still not sure if I can put it all in one tour.

Mitte will be the next world to discover. Here you’ll see best how Berlin has changed in the last 20 years and still is changing, we will ride through streets that make you feel as if being in a village, take a look at the last original inner courtyard, actually ride “on” a palace and much much more.

The last world will be Friedrichshain. The home of Berlin’s anti-capitalist movement that is developing to a main party-district of the city. We will see how “punks” live side-by-side to owners of lofts and experience this Kiez from a local where you will have the best lemonade of your life!

Are you ready for this? I hope so.

2nd tour: “FindingBerlin Tour”

This alltime favourite will be about places in Berlin – places we love, places we hate and places we wrote about. We invite you to actually get involved and tell us what you think about these areas – maybe you even want to show us another great spot? Take this tour as a little guide for your stay in Berlin. We will mainly ride through Kreuzberg (because that’s where we love it most) but also visit other areas around the “Kiez”. Locals will tell  us what they think about their places and why they chose to do business there. And of course we don’t forget the best lemonade in the world (ok, you are also welcomed to get a coffee). So stay tuned!

Last week we finally shot the Bikes that will be available for the rental. It took quite some effort to cut out the background but I think that we did a good job! Thanks to the crew! Get some impressions of the shooting  - by the way a perfect activity to forget a cold and rainy saturday in Germany.

FindingBerlin-Tours. A project for alternative tours through Berlin on special bikes. That is the idea. No idea if it is going to work. But I know that it is worth a try. We love this city and believe that all Berlin-visitors should get an impression of the “Berlin on the second glance”. It is dirty, full of urban styles and attitudes, unique in history but famous for its contemporary life, poor, not always sexy, definitely reinventing itself every minute. There’s no chance to show you all of Berlin’s characteristics – we rather want to give you a glimpse of its attributes that makes it, well, confusing and therefore so interesting.

There will be no hop-in and hop-off tourism business here. All the tours we offer are designed to get you involved in this city. We do not want you to get to know places – we want to show you the soul of this city. This is not possible in big groups. It cannot be done by history-lectures. Stories will be told, people will be met and places will be experienced.

Bike tours always seemed so frustrating to me. Bunches of people on bikes that almost fall apart or that are heavy enough to last the third world war – just impossible to enjoy all the beautiful places. That is why I tried a new approach. Why not providing bikes that are beautiful, comfortable but still fast and light. And bikes with style, with their own personality – their own story. All the bikes we have are unique. They are special and made for enjoyable riding. There is a bike for every character. If not, just tell us what kind of character is missing – I will try my best to provide the perfect bike match.

I am juiced! I cannot await the beginning of this project. But I am just the provider – You are the one to fill it with life.

People who come to Berlin can’t find what everyone loves about it.
People who have always lived in Berlin can’t find what they used to love about it.
via findingberlin.com