Last, but very certainly not least, on our recent European excursion was Berlin! (If you missed my previous recaps on Innsbruck and Vienna, be sure to check them out.) Berlin was such an interesting city to explore for me, I couldn’t get over just how much history there is in such a now-liberal spot. I wish we had had a few more days to explore (and eat!) there, but alas, our work schedules were calling us home. Here are my favorites if you only have a day to visit Berlin:

• I can’t recommend enough the Fat Tire Bike Tour in Berlin. It was a great way to spend ~4 hours and gave us such a good overview of the city’s layout and history. Our tour guide, Felix, was the nicest, and made sure to point things out that interested him in learning more about the history of Berlin and Germany as a whole. I don’t think I would have liked the city as much as I did without this tour. It also gave us an opportunity to be one of the many (many!!) bikers in Berlin which felt like a fun, in-the-know activity. (Side note: We liked it so much that we went back the next day to rent bikes and explore the city more!)
• We stayed in Friedrichshain, a neighborhood in Berlin I can only describe as the most vegan-friendly place I’ve ever been. Pretty much every restaurant caters to the vegan crowd, and we had delicious thai food at XYZ and amazing vegan ice cream (right next door) at XYZ. If you’re looking for vegan or vegetarian eats, this is the place to be.
• On the north edge of  Friedrichshain and bordering Prenzlauer Berg, Volkspark Friedrichshain is a beautiful park that we biked and strolled through. Home to a number of soviet-era sculptures, the park’s entrance is a 1913-designed “Fairy Tale Fountain” that I completely fell in in love with. With 106 different sculptures from various German fairy tales, it was the perfect spot to rest and gaze for a few peaceful moments. There’s also a cafe located at the center of the park that serves a fine Americano.
• Because we had our bikes, we were able to pop around to many parts of the city, and visited a recommendation from one of my husband’s cousin, the Bikini “Kantini” Food Court. Before you may have any misguided associations, it’s not a pool-side attraction, but simply a two-part building. Regardless of the name, it is an amalgamation of food truck-style pop-up restaurants all clustered in one area, perfect to deliver myriad tastes of local cuisines. We dined on currywurst, Israeli street food, and a sampling of beers.

Do we have any Berlin readers or recent visitors to Germany’s capital? What would you recommend for the perfect one-day trip?? Let us know in the comments!