Running tour · Berlin

The Wall and the Gate

6.1 mi run

Open in Stride Stories

The stories on this route

1. The Brandenburg Gate

   Look up at the top of the Brandenburg Gate: a goddess driving a chariot drawn by four horses. Below her, six Doric columns and five passageways. When it opened in 1791, it was called the Peace Gate.

2. The Reichstag

   Look above the columns at the front of the Reichstag. Three words: Dem deutschen Volke. To the German People.

3. The Victory Column

   Look up at the top of the Victory Column: a gilded Victoria, about eight metres tall. Now look at the bands of gilded gun barrels on the column.

4. The Soviet War Memorial

   Look at the bronze soldier standing on top of the curved colonnade. In front, two T-34 tanks and two big guns.

5. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

   Look at the field of grey concrete slabs. Low at the edges, they rise toward the middle as the ground dips away. There are 2,711 of them, from about twenty centimetres to 4.7 metres tall.

6. Potsdamer Platz

   Look at the tall traffic light tower on the square. It's a replica of the first one in Germany, which went up here in 1924.

7. Topography of Terror and the Wall

   Look at the grey, pockmarked Wall along the street, about 200 metres of it. Just below it, in the trench, are old cellar walls, sheltered under glass.

8. Checkpoint Charlie

   Look at the white guard hut behind the sandbags. It's a copy. The sandbags are filled with concrete, and the original hut is in the Allied Museum.

9. Gendarmenmarkt

   Look at the two domed towers, facing each other across the square, with Schinkel's concert hall between them and Schiller's statue in front.

10. Bebelplatz and the empty library

    Look down through the glass pane in the cobbles. Below is a white room, five metres each way, lined with empty shelves. There's space for 20,000 books. No one can go in. The Israeli artist Micha Ullman made it, and it was unveiled in 1995.

11. The Berlin Cathedral and the Lustgarten

    Look up at the green copper dome and its gilded cross, above the Lustgarten lawn.

12. The Berlin Marathon

    Look east to the Brandenburg Gate and the Quadriga, then west down the long avenue to the golden Victory Column. On race weekend in late September, the finish line stands right here.

Stories researched October 2026 · every fact checked against a source