Underground Tours Berlin

The sound of the Underground…
We’ve actually been wanting to go on an Underground Tour in Berlin for ages. We picked the subway/ bunker tour and it was amazing.
Let me tell you all about it. On the website it says you will have to wait in a queue and it’s first-come-first-served, but we got there ten minutes before the start, grabbed tickets in less than 30 seconds and we were off soon after (it was a weekday in November though…).

There was a random door on the street that we opened and down the stairs we went! We started in a WWII bunker that was converted into a bomb shelter against nuclear, biological and chemical attacks during the Cold War. It is 130 meters by 30 meters big and you can easily get lost inside.
The first half of the tour was spent in here, learning about the history of the bunkers and why they were built.
The second half of the tour, we jumped on the train for one stop and from inside the station, we went through a secret door and into a Cold War bunker built in 1977.

It was fascinating! It was built for thousands of people and you have to wonder how they would have coped in there, as it was meant as a hideaway for two weeks if an atomic bomb had hit Berlin. There were not enough toilets, but this was intentional, so there would always be a queue of people watching and waiting to make sure the only thing you were doing behind the tiny curtain covering the toilet was in fact using the toilet – basically providing absolutely no privacy to commit suicide (which was massive at the time) and there were no toilet seats, as after two weeks stuck with so many people you might get angry and hit someone over the head with it.
The bunk beds came in four layers and it’s hard to imagine anyone getting any sleep. The top bunker would have to deal with the pea soup farts and rising heat and the people at the bottom would be dripped on from the bunks over them, as the people sweated in their sleep. We weren’t allowed to take photos, but I sneaked this one in, as it was so interesting. We all had a little lie down on the beds and it was so uncomfortable it’s hard to imagine anyone getting any shut eye at all.

I have to say I wouldn’t like to be stuck in a bunker, ever. Even our amazing guide Anja said she would rather have grabbed a bottle of bubbly and walk into the centre of a nuclear attack than spend two weeks underground…
Easily the most interesting tour we have done in Berlin – highly recommended to you all 🙂