Hot Air Balloon, Berlin
Thursday, 1st December 2005 by Alex Turnbull
Although this has appeared in our comments, we've never actually posted it, so here is the fabulously brightly-coloured hot-air balloon, tethered above Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. Pretty huh? I'm sure I read somewhere that you can go up in it (still tethered in place), but I'm afraid I have absolutely no proof that that's actually true...
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
It’s the logo of Sat1, a german tv station. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/sat1/
to be precise, the former logo of a more or less former tv station. it’s now part of Prosieben.Sat1 Media AG, which is also about to be taken over – by the already very influential conservative publisher Axel Springer.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/29/business/springer.php
View Placemark This is not as colorful as the posted one, but it’s still a balloon ;].
But the answer to the question is yes, you can take a short ride in the tethered ballon for a small fee, of course. The balloon will rise to about the height of the nearby buildings in Potsdammer Platz and the newer buildings in Leipziger Platz (the octagonal plaza directly to the east) and allow the riders to have a good elevated panarama view of Berlin. To the north 1/2 way to the Brandenburg Gate there is shown in his photo a large patch of sand that is now a memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe during the 2nd world war. The memorial is made up of almost 3000 concrete stele poking out of the ground and would look today completely different.
From the status of the buildings going up and the state of today’s memorial, this photo was probably taken around 2002.
There is another one in Brussels ( http://www.aerobrussels.be/ ) but you can only see it in Google Earth (not on Google local). You could go in it until last week when it was damaged by the snow storm.
position in Google earth is 50°51’43.82″N 4°21’33.18″E
About 35km north of here is the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Museum. I can’t seem to locate it. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks.
if you have a look at http://tinyurl.com/dw64u you’ll see some pics taken from the balloon when i was in Berlin in September
the balloon’s website is at http://tinyurl.com/dndhj
i think it cost 19 euros a ride and lasted about 15 minutes
rob
his shadow
It seems that the balloon in Paris was not available at time of picture: View Placemark
Satellite is not at the vertical