Brandenburg Gate

What makes it special

The chariot on top is the Quadriga, with Victoria, the goddess of victory, holding the reins, and it faces east toward the city centre. Napoleon took it to Paris in 1806, and when it came back in 1814 Karl Friedrich Schinkel added the iron cross and the Prussian eagle you see in it.

Below it, five passages run between the columns, with a lower gatehouse on either side.

On the west side, a double row of paving stones set into the asphalt of Platz des 18. März marks the curve the Wall made in front of the gate. The gate stood inside the border strip from 1961 until it reopened in December 1989.

From the middle passage the view runs east across Pariser Platz and west across the square on the other side.

For about ten nights each October, the Festival of Lights covers the columns in animated projections.

Visiting

Pariser Platz, the square on the east side, is where to begin. Walk up to the gate and find the north gatehouse, which holds the Room of Silence, a small quiet room not dedicated to any religion or worldview. The Berlin Tourist Information Centre is also at the gate, open every day.

The gate is open to everyone at all hours, so walk through between the columns to the square on the west side, and go on from there to the Reichstag or into the Tiergarten. The Holocaust memorial, the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, is a short walk from the gate.

Tips

Midday is the busiest time on Pariser Platz. For a photograph of the whole gate, stand in the middle of that square, facing west.

Then walk up to the columns and look west through them. The Victory Column stands in the distance, framed between the columns.