Europe 2019: Brandenburg Gate

100 Places To See (and take a selfie) Before You Die:

Europe 2019

Brandenburg Gate

Berlin, Germany

This was the second place we visited that is also on our "100 Places Wall" back home. The gate itself is impressive and important, but this is really more about visiting Berlin than just the Brandenburg Gate.

We took an organized tour from our ship to Berlin, and I'll cover more on that in subsequent posts, but this is just going to be a short one about the gate.

We walked to the Brandenburg Gate through Tiergarten, which is a public park and interesting in its own right, as we followed our excellent guide for the day.

We came up on the gate from the back side and it's impressive. This approach would have been from West Berlin up until 1989. The gate itself was one of the few structures here to survive WW2, albeit with heavy damage.

Here, and most places where it once stood in Berlin, you can see bricks indicating where the Berlin Wall once stood. It's sort of a dotted line that reminds you of this cities' tumultuous past.

It was originally constructed as you see it today in the late 1700's. Up until 1919, only the royal family and one other family (the Pfuel family) were allowed to pass through the center passage as Samantha and I are about to do.

The eastern side is a much better viewing point. Pariser Platz on this side is largely a pedestrian zone and traffic hasn't been allowed to pass through the gate for quite some time. That said, there's not really anything to do - there's not a "Gate Tour" or anything like that. You just sort of look at it. 

In fact, it's very much a working area of Berlin. The German Parliament building is a block away and the US Embassy is literally right next to it...and right behind me in this picture. It's not a touristy place, but there are some souvenir shops and plenty of places to eat and it's a very pretty area so it's got that going for it.

Berlin is a huge city and there is lots to see and do, but the Berlin Gate is a must see if you're here. It's not in an isolated area or difficult to get to and its history alone makes it worthy of a visit....and of ruining other peoples photos apparently.