Finding the time to keep fit and see the sights when you are in a new city can push you to the limit, which is why a jogging tour could be your answer. Andrew Eames breaks a sweat in Berlin.
I have a friend, a hard-pressed lawyer, who’s obsessed with running. The more he earns, the higher his profile, the further he runs. He can’t let a day pass without completing a minimum mileage, no matter where he is in the world. Last year, on a business trip to Australia, he deliberately broke the journey at Singapore’s Changi airport in order to be able to run around the airport perimeter before jumping on the next plane and continuing. Presumably he also found somewhere to have a shower first.
Anyway, Chris (not his real name) knows his running habit makes him a laughing stock and he takes it all good-humouredly on the chin, but on the rare occasions when he does stick up for what he does, he maintains that going for a run is the best way of getting to know a city when travelling on business. A high-achiever like him has no time for a traditional city tour.
And now it seems that the world’s major cities are cottoning onto the likes of Chris and his distinctive needs, with a concept called Sightjogging, which bundles sightseeing and exercise into one. First there was New York and Rome, then came several more US destinations, with Frankfurt and London having a stab at it too. And in October last year Berlin, already home to the Trabi Safari (a city tour in Trabant cars), launched its own Sightjogging outfit – which was why I found myself loitering at the Brandenburg Gate on a chilly spring morning wearing a tracksuit and trainers.
My guide was the athletic-looking Agnes Noll, a fully qualified tour leader who also confessed to a marathon or two, and when ?I looked daunted at this piece of information, she insisted that I shouldn’t worry, there was absolutely no need for speed. She’d be requiring all her breath, she said, for the “running commentary”. She asked: “Would ten kilometres be okay?” I said it would, if she promised to treat me gently.
She did. Setting off from the Brandenburg Gate, we stitched our way around the edge of the Tierpark in the heart of the city, taking in the Holocaust Memorial, Potsdamer Platz, the embassy district, the Victory Monument/Column, the Bellevue Palace, the new Hauptbahnhof and the immensely impressive architecture of all ?the new government buildings in the vicinity of the Reichstag.
Agnes turned out to be an enthusiast both for her city and for the sheer pleasure of running. Berlin was an ideal place for Sightjogging, she said, being flat, spread out, and having a big green space at its centre which is three-quarters of the size of New York’s Central Park. For 90 minutes we ran mostly on springy footpaths rather than pavements, dipping in and out of the park and running by the River Spree, along routes that tourists would only ever know if they walked – but by walking they would only get to see a fraction of what we saw.
We ran between the cages of the celebrated Berlin zoo, through the city’s open-air gas-lamp museum, behind the kindergarten built at enormous expense for the children of politicians, past the Chancellery where Angela Merkel works, and along the former route of the Wall. Not all of these were conventional sights, but then Sightjoggers, said Agnes, were generally interested in everything and anything, and asked more questions than conventional tourists.
In a bus tour, she added, she only had time to point out places as they drove along, and usually they’d be gone before she had the chance to talk about them: “I get frustrated because I can’t tell people what I know.” On a jogging tour, however, there is more time to elaborate, and I learned how much money the city had made out of Knut, the zoo’s baby polar bear, and how Ariel Sharon had once got stuck in the lift in the Bellevue Palace.
With just the two of us, the run was mercifully uncompetitive, but it’s not always so. Occasionally runners were out ?to prove themselves, said Agnes, particularly when they found themselves lining up alongside other nationalities. She said: “Sometimes those who start fast end up slow, and vice versa.”
Sightjoggers has several strong athletes in its ten-strong team of guides, and Agnes herself was clearly able to keep up with the fastest of them, but generally she tries to blunt the competitive edge by requesting a keen group to “slow down please, or else I can’t talk”. That usually did the trick, she said, although she hasn’t yet met my friend Chris.
As for me, I didn’t really notice whether our pace was fast or slow, or even how far we’d been and how much further there was to go, until suddenly we were back at the Brandenburg Gate, and it was all over. I realised there had been so much to look at and talk about that I’d completely forgotten to feel in the least bit tired.
Getting there
Andrew Eames flew to Berlin with Lufthansa’s new service from London City (tel +44 (0)871 945 9747, lufthansa.com) and stayed in the Hotel Maritim ProArte, on Friedrichstrasse 151 (tel +49 302 0335, maritim.de).
UNUSUAL CITY TOURS
Running tours
The Berlin Sightjogging team has three main tours, which generally operate either in the early morning or in the evening. Prices depend on group size, but range from e20 per hour (in a group of five), to e80 per hour (for a personal tour). Reservations are essential ?and tours (in English and German) usually start from? the Brandenburg Gate. ?Tel +49 3079 7898 54, sightjogging-berlin.de.
In Rome, there are many more itineraries and virtually every language group is catered for. Tel +39 347 3353 185, sightjogging.it.
In the US, Sightjogging is most developed with City Running Tours, which operates in New York, Chicago, San Diego, Washington DC and Charleston. Tel +1 2122 0933 70, cityrunningtours.com.
Bicycle tours
Two-wheeled tours are going to become increasingly common, with Paris’s recent investment in city bikes and plans for cycle motorways in London. In France, they’ve started putting specially programmed satnavs on bicycles, so you don’t have to keep unfurling your map.
But the cycle city par excellence is Amsterdam, where Mike’s Bike Tours has a daily expedition that starts in the city but also includes a windmill, a cheese-maker and clog factory in the surrounding countryside. Price e22 per person, tel +31 2062 27970, mikesbiketoursamsterdam.com.
Mike’s Bikes also does tours of Munich, and sister organisation Fat Tire has tours of Paris, Berlin and Barcelona. Visit fattirebiketours.com.
Character car tours
As mentioned above, Berlin has its Trabant Safaris (trabi-safari.de), where convoys of these charismatic, arthritic East German classics set off with tourists behind the wheel. Paris has followed suit with its own classic put-putterer, the Citroen 2CV, although this time the “duck” comes with its own driver, specially attuned to Parisian traffic. All 2CVs are convertible, hence the moniker 4roues-sous-1parapluie.com, ?which means “four wheels under one umbrella”.
Meanwhile, over in New York there’s a cabbie with an appetite, offering visitors a yellow cab experience with a difference. Famous Fat Dave has devised tours of celebrated eateries, particularly those which do you a good portion. Fat Dave’s menu includes the Pickle Tickle Tour, the Midnight Munchies, the Phallic Foods Tour, and the Sushi Bar Hop. US$100 per hour, including food, regardless of how many eaters. Visit famousfatdave.com.
Sidecar tours
This may be a more widespread phenomenon, but the only one I’m aware of is in Lisbon, where one of the Sidecar Touring Co’s brightly painted monarchs of the road will sweep you off your feet and get the wind in your hair. Tours are pretty much according to a customer’s whim, but could include Lisbon’s old town, as well as its royal coast around Cascais and Estoril. They’ll even teach you to drive one of these things if you want. Expect to pay e60 for one person for a half-day. Tel +35 196 396 5105, sidecartouring.co.pt.
Segway tours
The Segway looks like a garden roller you can stand on – it doesn’t require any effort and carries you along at jogging speed. There are Segway tours in several cities, but I’d particularly earmark Vienna, whose historic centre is a suitable maze of narrow pedestrianised streets, and where you’re far less likely to get mugged for your fancy transporter than in most places. The tours cost e70 per person for a three-hour itinerary. Tel +43 1729 7234, citysegwaytours.com/vienna.
