Free tours of european cities
July 15, 2008
Face it, we’ve all experienced moments as a budget traveller where we’ve arrived in a new city and had to decide: do we go and learn more/see more/do more in this city, or do we have a real meal tonight? If you have never had to make this decision before, then I envy you. Instant noodles and day-old bread can make even the most exciting destination taste dry and stale.
But now you don’t need to be faced with that difficult challenge. Unsure about whether that city walking tour is worth the cash they want you to shell out? Not a problem anymore with the Sandemans New Europe walking tours. Located in Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Munich and Edinburgh, these tours work on the principle that you try before you buy. The tour guides work for tips, and they do their best to earn them.
In Berlin, the city tour starts outside the Starbucks in front of Brandenburg Gate. They leave three times a day, and several days a week also run tours out to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp or down to the castles of Potsdam. In summer you’ll find several hundred people at the meeting opint, but the company makes sure there are always plenty of guides and the mass of tourists is broken up into groups of around thirty.
If you still don’t think you can get up the energy for a three and a half hour walk through Berlin, there are free bike tours (including free bike rental) which start at the Postfuhramt on Oranienburger Straße, or for those more into the nightlife there’s a free pubcrawl starting at S-Bahnhof Hackescher Markt.
While this is a great opportunity to see the city for absolutely nothing, don’t forget that the tour guides are relying on tips to ensure their own meal tonight. Do the tour, experience the city and give the guide what you think it was worth. Then go and get that kebab you’ve been craving.





