Items | Berlin's Vanished Canal: A Self-Guided Walking Tour
Berlin's Vanished Canal: A Self-Guided Walking Tour
Important Information
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Wheelchair accessible
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Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
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Service animals allowed
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Public transportation options are available nearby
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Transportation options are wheelchair accessible
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All areas and surfaces are wheelchair accessible
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Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Cancellation policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
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For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
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Cut-off times are based on the experience’s local time.
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If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
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This experience requires a minimum number of travelers. If it’s canceled because the minimum isn’t met, you’ll be offered a different date/experience or a full refund.
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Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.
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Berlin's Luisenstadt district played a key role in shaping the city we know today, yet surprisingly little of it survives. On this self-guided audio tour, you'll follow the route of a vanished 19th-century canal that once cut through it, linking the River Spree in Berlin-Mitte with a busy inner-city harbour in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Along the way, you'll discover how this waterway later became part of the Berlin Wall border strip—and how local residents reclaimed it after decades of division. The tour begins beside the former canal - transformed into a chain of gardens - just a short walk from the Spree. From there, you'll stroll along Bethaniendamm, past Sankt-Thomas-Kirche, tracing the canal's ...
Highlights
From 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes
Offered in English
Free Cancellation
Mobile Ticket
From 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes
Offered in English
Free Cancellation
Mobile Ticket
What's Included
Lifetime access to this tour in English before your booking date and after it
Offline access to audio, maps, and geodata
Flexibility to explore at your own pace with a self-guided GPS tour
App for Android and iOS
Directions to the starting point so that when you’re in the right place, the tour will start
Smartphone and headphones
Transportation
Food and drink
Personal expenses for admission fees not included during the tour
Meeting Points
Departure
This tour starts at Luisenstadt. Before arrival, please install the mobile app and use the code provided on your confirmation ticket. Detailed starting point instructions are available after downloading.
Return
Tour ends at Urbanhafen
Berlin's Vanished Canal: A Self-Guided Walking Tour
About
Berlin's Luisenstadt district played a key role in shaping the city we know today, yet surprisingly little of it survives. On this self-guided audio tour, you'll follow the route of a vanished 19th-century canal that once cut through it, linking the River Spree in Berlin-Mitte with a busy inner-city harbour in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Along the way, you'll discover how this waterway later became part of the Berlin Wall border strip—and how local residents reclaimed it after decades of division. The tour begins beside the former canal - transformed into a chain of gardens - just a short walk from the Spree. From there, you'll stroll along Bethaniendamm, past Sankt-Thomas-Kirche, tracing the canal's ...
Highlights
From 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes
Offered in English
Free Cancellation
Mobile Ticket
From 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes
Offered in English
Free Cancellation
Mobile Ticket
What's Included
Lifetime access to this tour in English before your booking date and after it
Offline access to audio, maps, and geodata
Flexibility to explore at your own pace with a self-guided GPS tour
App for Android and iOS
Directions to the starting point so that when you’re in the right place, the tour will start
Smartphone and headphones
Transportation
Food and drink
Personal expenses for admission fees not included during the tour
Meeting Points
Departure
This tour starts at Luisenstadt. Before arrival, please install the mobile app and use the code provided on your confirmation ticket. Detailed starting point instructions are available after downloading.
Discover the remarkable story of a Turkish guest worker who planted onions at the Berlin Wall, creating a hidden Kreuzberg garden that survived in its shadow. Marvel at how this small act of quiet resistance endured through decades of division.
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St. Thomas Church, Berlin
Stroll past Sankt-Thomas-Kirche as you trace the canal's forgotten course through the neighbourhood. Learn how this stretch of Berlin, including one of the city's oldest hospitals nearby, escaped large-scale demolition thanks to local activists and squatters in the 1970s and 80s.
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Engelbecken
Visit Engelbecken, the only stretch of the old canal that still contains water, home to more than a tonne of fish and an occasional rogue swimmer. Take in this rare survivor of a waterway that otherwise vanished from Berlin's map long ago.
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Discover Waldemarbrücke, which marked the border between East and West Berlin after 1961. Learn why 6,880 glowing balloons floated above the former Wall route here in 2014, marking 25 years since its fall.
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Pass this stretch of Erkelenzdamm, where a murdered Jewish family were symbolically rejoined again nearly 70 years later. Reflect on this quiet, personal act of remembrance along the former canal's course.
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See how landscape architect Erwin Barth transformed the drained canal into this public park. Discover the poignant detail that Barth even designed his own final resting place within it.
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Explore the industrial courtyards of Elisabethhof, where grand pianos, telegraph equipment, and even a top-secret Nazi cipher machine were once produced. Learn how a simple human mistake helped crack this code system, even more sophisticated than Enigma.
