Behind the scenes

The following morning we woke up to glorious sunshine. This was my view while taking my morning shower on the back deck of the boat.

We travelled along the Spree past old buildings in use, under renovation or demolition and new buildings.

We needed to make sure that we reached this particular bridge in time that morning. As the close-up of the sign shows, as sports boaters without a built-in VHF radio, we would not be permitted past this point after 10:30am.

We had made it in time (comfortably and after a hearty on-board breakfast) and proceeded past more stunning buildings and gorgeous bridges. Being on a boat gives you an unfamiliar, but very good view of some of the craftsmanship that went into the bridges.

Looking back at the Siegessäule, you can see the reason for the restriction to sport boats: commercial boats. This stretch of the Spree has a lot of commercial tourism boats on it. As the day progresses, more and more. It seems more tourists want a sit-down tour of the city in the afternoon than at 8 am. These commercial boats talk to each other on VHF radio and avoid traffic issues as a result.

Sport boats tend to travel at a known speed and as long as they have entered the Spree by 10:30, they will have left this popular section by the afternoon. The reason why this section is so popular soon becomes clear.

Those familiar with German politics will have recognised the architecture of the Kanzleramt (Federal Chancellery), although like me will be more familiar with its press images from the front.

We also passed the Paul Löbe Haus and the State Library, which I had seen on my last visit to Berlin during the tour of the Reichstag. We passed that too and the main building of one of the public TV stations.

A reader recently commented to me how it was peculiar that people wave at and from boats passing and we both wondered why that may be. Looking through my pictures of this trip I didn’t find any of waving, but I did take this one, in which we appear to feature as a tourist attraction to someone in the political district of Berlin!