Berlin

This time we took the scooter and booked a wheelchair  at the far end. 

Out of Dublin enplaned with no trouble whatsoever and deposited in 30 degree heat at Schoenfeld. After 11pm. 

General wisdom is there are no wheelchair friendly taxis and if there are no wheelchair friendly taxis then getting a mobility scooter into the city was going to be a problem.

The model I use is a Shoprider Napoli. It fits in a FWD boot and goes into the back of a  people carrier. We found a people carrier taxi at the airport who whisked us into and out of the city with no trouble at all. 

Hotel to Airport €45 incl a tip. worth every cent. (Airport to the hotel was the same)

Book in, dump the bags and go for a pint. We left the scooter on charge and took the wheelchair. (An elderly Days self propelled one).

Pavement was alright, rental wheelchair very flexible and noisy (New wheels) not great) 

Crossed the road on green. aimed for what looked like a low piece of  kerb and was almost pitched out of the chair. on impact. Spun the chair hit it backwards and bounced up as peopled swarmed round us and traffic flowed past. We stopped and looked at the kerb it looked to be an inch square, not chamfered. We filed that kerb for future reference. It turns out we didn’t have to, those little kerbs are very much the norm and not the exception. 

They won’t bother Berlins squadrons of bicycles but they will stop dead the front casters on a manual wheelchair.. And they did regularly.

The scooter, a three wheeler with fat balloon tyres treated the kerbs with disdain, ignored cobblestones and dealt comfortably with the gaps between the train and the platform on the Sbahn. 

As soon as someone develops a never ending battery for it, it’ll be great. 

Shops, bars and restaurants were usually accessible. 

On the streets people, when they noticed you got out of the way or tripped over you when you stopped to let them past. (These weren’t people coming behind me, these were people coming straight towards me). While looking at an art exhibition I was tutted at for making people walk round me.  I didn’t make them walk round me. Its the designers fault for making a machine which is incapable of going sideways.  Apart from the kerbs, the above problems aren’t unique to berlin. They’re the same everywhere. 

People just generally not looking where they are going and relying on speed and aggression to carry them through. 

I don’t use public transport at home but in a place the size of Berlin its a splendid way to get about I’m told. And its all integrated, so if the elevator doesn’t work on the Sbahn you can go to another station and get out via the Ubahn. And return by tram, yes it takes wheelchairs and scooters too.  The underground trains, wait at  where the front of the train comes to a halt, the driver produces a folding ramp and on you get, you tell him where you wish to get off and he reverses the process at the far end. Brilliant. 

The lifts are the weirdest things. Doors open, no one gets out. there is no room in the lift you wave the lift on. Occupants of the lift stare at you until the doors shut and the lift moves. The lift returns. same people in it. same ritual, repeat. In the end an attendant came over ordered everyone out of the lift and waved us in.

Still on lifts here if its just the two of you. person on wheels straight in. person on feet, in and off to one side. When you get to your floor. person on wheels reverses out, followed by foot passenger.. Sometimes the person on wheels will meet an obstacle. usually a man with a suit and a briefcase who is too important to step out of peoples way. As you do not have eyes in the back of your head you wont see him until you come to an abrupt halt.  (We were there  almost a week and I very much doubt if i heard the word sorry or excuse me). 

Apart from the kerbs which are a killer. And road crossing which had the capability of being a killer. Do not take chances on lights. Just don’t. you’ll see why when you get there. Berlin was great. The guardians of the transport system seem genuinely pleased when you tell them how good it is. Everywhere’s clean. The dogs poo under the trees. so nobody walks (or wheels) through it. 

Beggars can be a bit aggressive. One didn’t believe me when i said I had no change. I hadn’t, the only change I had was the was the 50c for the loo. (as it happens the disabled loos are free). 

Very few police about (although loads of them can descend in moments as required). Ambulances and fire appliances are really noisy and are usually in a hurry. 

And no we didn’t get mugged, or pick pocketed or feel for one moment we were in danger of being sold into white slavery..

Museum staff and Lutherans told us off for having a noisy wheelchair they were not best pleased when I informed them it was issued in Berlin and I thought all German wheelchairs were like this. 

Thats the reason you see so few manual wheelchairs out and about, they don’t work. Powerchairs and scooters do, as long as they don’t have ridiculously dinky wheels, and east you need some sort of suspension especially on the cobbles and kerbs. 

The museums and art galleries are accessible and worth the trip. Feed the sparrows at almost any outdoor eatery.

For a bit of quiet contemplation go and see the Kaiser Wilhem Church for a bit of unquiet contemplation visit the memorial to the murdered jews of 

Europe.  In photographs and looking at it it looks benign and unthreatening but once you walk or worse, wheel  through it, well, its the creepiest thing I’ve done in a while. 

Take a tour bus it will give you an idea of the size of the place. thats what the wheelchairs for. They can’t take power chairs and scooters. But they can take a manual chair. Use the mid door on the bus it’s less bother.

Lot of building going on so you need to be aware of your surroundings. As in disappearing kerbs and pavements. 

For the life of me I can’t understand the European fascination with cobblestones. ( they were discontinued in Ireland years ago when the civilians used them as missiles against the police, crown forces and neighbours of an alternative religion). Not great in the wet, uncomfortable underfoot and rattley on wheels. They may well look pretty but that’s about it. 

Like those knobbley bits at pedestrian crossings for blind people. Who thought that was a good idea. 

 The Ironside Travel Bureau