Fat Tire Bike Tours operate in Paris, London, Barcelona and Berlin. As of today, we have done them all. That earned us discounts for this final tour and free t-shirts!! We will wear them proudly. If you travel to one of these great cities, a Fat Tire Bike Tour is an absolute must. The bikes are great; you hardly have to work at all, and the tour guides are often a bit Bohemian which makes you want to relive your youth. They are very well-versed in history and quite often, very attractive!! Truly, a Fat Tire Bike Tour is the best you will ever take in any major city. Our bike tour today lived up to our impressions of the three previous ones we have done with this company.

Places that might take a long while to get to on foot, only take minutes on bike. On our tour we simply followed our leader - on the bike path, into the street, up on the sidewalk and down through the square, ringing the bell to warn pedestrians they might be soon runover by a heard of tourists on great, big bikes. Every few hundred meters, we stopped to hear information about the site and to receive a plain-language history lesson. One of our first stops was Check-Point Charlie - the best known crossing point between East and West Berlin after the end of WW II.

Today I learned in the most clear way I've ever heard about how Germany was first formed from the garnering of Germanic countries by Prussian leaders. And then how in 1945, Germany was defeated by Democratic Allies and Communist Russia. We stood near the very spot where Hitler had elaborate underground bunkers and where he and his long-time lover and wife of less than 40 hours, Eva Braum, committed suicide when the defeat of Germany was imminent.

I also learned in a very clear way for the very first time how defeated Germany was divided at the end of WW II. Russia got the east; the Allies, USA, Great Brittan, and France, got the West. Because the capitol, Berlin, happened to be located in the Eastern half, it was divided amongst the victors once again. East Berlin went to Russia; West Berlin with to the allies. What a horrible situation!! Whoever on earth thought that might be managed well??? History shows us that surely did not work.

Berlin is a city rich in both old and recent history. Reliving the recent history made me as a member of the collective human spirit unforgivably shamed for what has taken place but remembering this history makes me give deep thought and consideration into what we are, and what kind of leaders we choose to follow and what may be taking place somewhere on our globe today.

Let's don't end on a down note. Instead Stan and I want to say we had a fantastic day today. We were dressed in layers - just like our mom's used to dress us for the rare and wonderful snowfall in Arkansas. We were plied with clothes from head to toe, just to stay warm on this brisk and windy day for our bike ride. Our tour was led by a well-educated young man, Jeff, from Tasmania and we rode with fellow tourists from Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Gibraltar and Ireland. We had fun, we saw wonderful sights, we had lunch together, we felt sunshine on our faces and we made friends. It was a rare and wonderful day today!!