Sascha Moellering remembers very well the evening of November 9, 1989 when the Berlin Wall opened and communism died. "I sat watching it all on TV with my mother, and she said to me: 'Why are you still here?'"
Fifteen years old at the time and growing up in democratic West Berlin, Moellering phoned his friends. They went to the Brandenburg Gate and clambered up the Wall's west face. "We danced on top of the Wall, sang 'Give Peace a Chance' and stuff like that," he recalls.
These days he guides tourists around Berlin on a bicycle.
His Wall tour begins at Platz des 9. November 1989 - November 9 Square - formerly the border crossing at Bornholmer Strasse.
On that night 25 years ago, tens of thousands of people in the communist-ruled east gathered at the crossing after reports that travel to the west would be allowed after 28 years of prohibition.
East German spokesman Guenter Schabowski had said - probably misinterpreting his orders - that the citizens of communist East Germany were now free to travel abroad "with immediate effect."
The news, broadcast on West German television and seen across communist East Germany, drew thousands to the Wall to confront the duty officer, Harald Jaeger, at Bornholmer Strasse.
"He knew they weren't simply going to go home again," Moellering explains. At 11:30 pm Jaeger - again without proper authorisation - sent out the instruction to communist border guards to "open the floodgates," becoming the officer who effectively breached the Wall.
All that remains of the Wall here today is a small, brightly painted strip.
Cherry trees donated by a Japanese broadcaster now grow next to the spot where rejoicing East Germans crossed into the West.
Some 9,000 of them were planted in total.
"It's incredibly beautiful to see the cherry blossoms along the Wall road," Moellering says.
Nearby is the Mauerpark (Wall Park), which contains one of the longest pieces of the Wall still standing. Today it is a 120-metre long canvas for graffiti artists from across Europe to display their talents.
None of their work lasts long.
"At the moment the Wall is completely resprayed every two days. The paint is probably 2 centimetres thick by now," Moellering says.
A further 1.4 kilometres of the site is officially a memorial, with texts inscribed on rusting steel and audio clips available detailing the long years of Europe's division by the Iron Curtain.
"Here along the Bernauer Strasse there was the unusual situation that the buildings were in East Berlin and the pavement in the West," Moellering says.
Old photographs show its drama, with a couple holding up their baby so that the grandparents cooped up in the East on the other side can at least see their grandchild through a window.
Strips of steel are set into the ground here to show where escape tunnels were once dug. The most famous, Tunnel 57, which runs under the Bernauer Strasse memorial, was the longest at 145 metres.
Seen from the west, the Wall was a featureless concrete barrier, 3.6 metres high and topped with a rounded section. But there was much more on the other side. "There were at least two walls, sometimes three, plus a fence," Moellering says.
A watchtower on the Berlin-Spandau canal recalls the first death claimed by the Wall. On August 24, 1961, Guenter Litfin tried to swim the canal and was shot dead - one day after the order to shoot was issued and just 11 days after construction began.
"His brother Juergen Litfin put a homeless man in the tower in the 1990s to prevent its demolition. Later he paid out of his own pocket for the tower to be renovated," Moellering says. "To him, it's his tower."
At Potsdamer Platz, young tourists pose in front of remaining sections of Wall.
"The trend started three years ago," Moellering says. Not everyone has taken to the idea.
He attempts to avoid the main tourist traps on the route, such as Checkpoint Charlie, a mid-city crossing between the old American Sector and the East.
Moellering and many Berliners dislike the commercialisation of the Checkpoint, where tourists can have their photographs taken with "guards" dressed up in the uniforms of the day, or can tour nearby commercial museums.
The bike guide says there are much better Wall sights elsewhere, if you know where to look.
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