Walking tour is one of the best ways to discovering the rich history, vibrant culture and the architectural wonders of Berlin. However, to get the best learning experience, the use of graphics can help to illustrate the city and its stories. Regardless of whether this is the first time reading a particular location or the tenth time, using such visual aids for walking tours can add context and appear much more interesting to the viewer. Let’s look at a number of resources you can use during your walking tours in Berlin in this article.
1. Maps
The maps are necessary tools to guide you around the city or may explain different eras of the city’s history. Although the Berliners are proud of their efficient infrastructure, especially the transport, feel free to discover the city on foot. When you invite a detailed map you can see how the place is laid out, landmark destinations that you are able to go to, and how you go from one point to the other.
To receive a map of Berlin there are several possibilities. And you can either purchase paper based maps at the tourist information centres or use map applications on your smart phones. Examples of digital map enabling mobile applications include Google Maps, City mapper, and Here WeGo.
It is worthy of note that if you are going to make use of the online map to navigate across the city, then it is worthy of note that an offline map of the city is better to be downloaded before you start the tour. Further, it is advisable to distinguish some places or attractions in your map in order for you to easily find and identify them when doing the walking tour.
- Guidebooks
Another set of outstanding textual and graphical tools to improve your practical trainings based on walking tours in Berlin is the guidebooks. These books contain a wealth of material about the history, architecture, culture, and proposed route in the city. They sometimes have maps and illustrations which if incorporated will help expand your knowledge of the events.
A good guidebook should be recent and specialty made depending on the activities that you intend to undertake. There is nothing that can compare to the Lonely Planet Berlin City Guide, the Berlin guide from DK Publishing, and the Berlin guide from Rick Steves.
Other significant information that can be found in guidebooks is more about worthy places or peculiar sites that aren’t explored as frequently. When you read about these overlooked areas in advance, you’ll be able to see them on your walking tour and learn even more about Berlin that you might not even know existed.
- Audio Guides and Mobile Apps
Mobile applications and audio that is provided on the site may be useful for people who are going to walk around Berlin. This walking guide is in the form of digital devices that provide pertinent information including historical background, trivia, and even anecdotes as visitors move around the landmarks in the city.
Hence, one of the most significant and frequently downloaded audio guide is the Visit Berlin app that freely offers information about a number of tourist destinations and flows self-tours. One more app under discussion is the Rick Steves Audio Europe app which is aimed to cover several European cities as well as Berlin and offer their deep audio tours.
These apps are easy to navigate and in many cases, they let you download prior to your walking tour, the audio content you will need; therefore, no dependence on a stable internet connection is required. You just put on the headphones and start listening to the interesting tales, watching at the same time the amazing architecture of the city.
- Historical Photographs
Picture can paint a picture to the otherwise just textual information from the history books was an effective tool in your Berlin walking tours. These kind of photographs may bring memories and draw the attention to the changes that the city have endured over the time.
For pictures, one could search from available sources including images from museums, archiving centers, as well as the internet principally with images of the city. It helps to carry few picture copies that are relevant to the landmarks you are going to visit. If you take, for instance, the historical image in your hands while standing in the same place now, you experience a strong similarity, which enhances the historical lesson learnt.
- Augmented Reality Experiences
If you are interested into providing your guests with the strongest walking tours in Berlin, it can be useful to enhance your tour with augmented reality (AR). AR introduces the capability of placing digital information on the physical environment and create engaging information experiences.
Google Lens is just one of several mobile applications which can offer augmented reality experiences which can enrich your tour. Using an app and aiming the smartphone’s camera at a building and a landmark, people can receive more information, historic photos, and images of how the building looked like several tens or hundreds of years before.
Furthermore, in Berlin, there are some museum and attractions providing their own apps with AR contents. For instance, the Berlin Wall Memorial has an additional AR content to the basic app that allows users to see the history of the division of the city during the Cold War will be seeing.
In Conclusion
Using visual aids on your walking tours in Berlin can greatly enhance your understanding and appreciation of the city’s history and culture. Whether it’s using maps to navigate, guidebooks to gain comprehensive knowledge, audio guides and mobile apps for informative commentary, historical photographs for context, or augmented reality for interactive experiences, there are various options to cater to your interests and preferences.
Remember, visual aids are meant to complement your experience, not replace the joy of exploring and discovering the city first-hand. So grab your chosen visual aids, put on your comfortable walking shoes, and embark on an unforgettable adventure through the streets of Berlin!
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