I wanted to do this for quite some time now.
There's a company offering sightseeing flights over Berlin in a seaplane, and
since I've never been in a seaplane before, I wanted to do that. Originally
I wanted to do the trip on my 40th birthday, but then decided to do something
slightly more extravagant. But then I somehow never
got around to actually do the seaplane flight. Either the plane was on some
air show, or they didn't fly on the particular day of the week, or it was
too cloudy, or the winds to gusty - it just didn't happen. But finally things
worked out fine and I had my seaplane flight.
One of the nice things about the seaplane sightseeing is that the starting point is reasonably central, so I got to see about as much of Berlin in 30 minutes than on a 60 minute flight from Finnow. Shown on the pictures below are the Breitscheidplatz (with the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche [Memorial Church], the Europa Center and bits of the Zoo), the 'Berliner Dom' (Berlin Cathedral), the 'Palast der Republik' (former GDR seat of government), the 'Rotes Rathaus' (seat of the mayor of Berlin), the Nikolaiviertel, the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz (with sightseeing balloon in upper right corner), the Olympic Stadium (currently being renovated), the Reichstag (btw, the ring structure next to the Brandenburg Gate [currently wrapped for restaurations] in the middle right of the image is a circle of 125 bear sculptures - the 'Buddy Bears' - which were painted by artists to represent countries all over the world), the airplane exhibition on Gatow airport, and Schloss Charlottenburg.
