Flying around the Templehof Airport...

One thing we have been surprised to learn here is that Berliners seem to strongly dislike signage. Perhaps they assume that people just know where to go...or rather SHOULD know where to go...but there never seem to be any signs.

This lack of information was fine when we went to the Sony Center to see a movie and were lucky to follow people down a random hallway to a hidden doorway that opened into a gigantic IMAX movie theatre.  But it was less funny when we were eagerly trying to meet our tour group to explore the Tempelhof Airport.

The Tempelhof Airport was built in the 1920s.  It was massively expanded and reconstructed by Albert Speer in the 1930s as the National Socialist Party prepared for its war efforts.  Pre-WWII, it was considered one of Europe's three iconic airports alongside London and Paris and by the end of the expansion it was one of the largest buildings on the planet.

After the war, the airport gained further significance as the centre point of the 1948-1949 Berlin Airlifts when the Soviet authorities halted all traffic into West Berlin via land and water.  In what is considered one of the greatest aviation feats in history, the Western Allies flew in all of the needed food and supplies to West Berlin's 2.5 million residents for 11 months.  At the peak, a stocked plane landed at the airport every 30 seconds.

Needless to say, we were very interested in taking a tour of this historic landmark.

Giving ourselves plenty of time and following the advice of the tour company to "meet at the entrance" we arrived to find the "main entrance" (or what we thought would be the main entrance) locked.  Unsure of what to do, we started to wander the perimeter of the absolutely enormous building.

After about 30 minutes, we ended up at Tempelhof Feld, the former airport runways turned national park.  The park is now used by hordes of local residents to kite-skateboard, bike, bbq sausages and just have a relaxing afternoon.  As an aside, it was cool to actually walk an entire runway!

But back to our problem - eager to still try and make our tour, we hurried through a good portion of the park to get to the other side of the building - approximately 4kms - with still no evidence of an entrance.

Another half an hour later, we arrived back at our starting point totally confused.  We had not seen one sign during our whole walk that indicated the location of the main entrance.

Just as we were about to give up and leave, we saw a group of people finishing up what looked like a tour.  Trying not to be stalkers, we followed the group down a tiny alley and then through a parking lot and another long corridor until several minutes later we arrived at a small door which turned out to be the entrance.   Considering the size and stature of this massive building, we don't think anyone could have claimed this small door would be a natural main entrance.

By this point, we had well missed the tour...but I suppose our afternoon walk actually gave us a more fulsome view of the airport itself!