The Pope's Revenge
Sun on the steel sphere makes a cross of light that embarrassed the state that built it.
L-BBE โ CC BY 3.0 ยท Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). โ CC BY-SA 4.0
On a clear day yes: nowhere else in Berlin gives you the city at this spread, and Berlin is flat so height counts for a lot. On an overcast day the ticket is entirely wasted, and there are cheaper lower alternatives such as the Reichstag glass dome, which is booked free in advance.
Yes, the restaurant booking is separate from the platform ticket and usually includes the ride up. Prices are high and the food is not the reason to go โ you are paying for the table and the rotation. If you only want the view, the platform ticket is far better value.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet โ be the first.
A 368-metre tower at Alexanderplatz, the tallest structure in Germany and a landmark visible from almost everywhere in Berlin. It was built in the 1960s in East Berlin and was meant as a political statement: visible proof of what the socialist state could do, seen from the windows of the western side. That is where the best irony in the tower's history sits. When sunlight strikes the steel sphere, the reflection forms a cross. The officially secular state that built it tried to get rid of the effect and failed, and Berliners named the reflection the Pope's Revenge. You can still see it on any sunny day. At the top is a viewing platform at 203 metres, with a revolving restaurant above it that completes a turn in about half an hour. The view from up there explains Berlin's layout better than any map: you work out where the line of the old Wall ran, and how the architecture of east and west differ.
Sun on the steel sphere makes a cross of light that embarrassed the state that built it.
The view explains the city's division and the architectural gap between east and west.
A full turn in about half an hour, so you see Berlin from every side while seated.
Alexanderplatz, central Berlin