When Thomas of Ber­lin­Boot­s­Touren asked us whether we wanted a free ride on a sunny after­noon on the Spree, we didn’t have to think twice about the oppor­tun­ity. First of all: who says no to a free ride? And second of all: we love water. Even though you can’t just freely dip into the rather muddy waters of our beloved city river, there’s still some­thing mes­mer­iz­ing about being at or on the water, for sure. When the Spree is the closest you can come to end­less water fronts and hori­zons, you’ll take a shot at lov­ing it, right?

The tril­lion of us were loaded on deck and off we went on an old DDR ship, KB12, along the water­fronts. The good thing about not going with a huge car­rier on a tour like this is frankly the intim­acy. Like hanging out with your best friends at a bar without being dis­turbed by massive gangs of tour­ists or other party-goers. In fact, if we had pre­pared any­thing in advance, we could’ve even brought our grill, could have anchored any­where on the Spree or went off at the beau­ti­ful Insel der Jugend in Treptow. Instead, we decided to lazily gaze across the water and dis­cover all those beau­ti­ful things on the river­side from a dif­fer­ent perspective.

The Cor­beau holds up to 11 pas­sen­gers and is a beauty of a boat — even I, a total ama­teur, can say that. She shim­mers in red and white and is super quiet. You can stretch beneath the sun on the top deck that holds place for about 5 – 6 per­sons at a time. She’s not a racing boat, sure, but fast enough to feel com­pet­it­ive with a hur­ry­ing jog­ger. The owner of the boat, Bruno, is so enthu­si­astic about her you will def­in­itely feel infec­ted by a new rush of love for ships and boats and everything that swims.

Thomas told us that there are other boats that can be ren­ted out, that some of them even go way deep into the winter. To see them all and check the prices, go to his web­site and see for your­self. If you’re new to Ber­lin and you want an over­view, the Schnup­per­tour which we took is per­fect for a chill after­noon and some rays of sun. If you want to dig deeper into the envir­on­ment, there are two more tours: one that goes across the city from East to West (includ­ing the Landwehrkanal) and one that will help you dis­cover all the beau­ti­ful lakes in and around Berlin.

Know­ing that that was prob­ably one of the last warm and sunny days of the year, the boat tour really freshened us up for those two hours we spent. It’s good to get out more often. If you’re plan­ning a birth­day or any event of some sorts, use the oppor­tun­ity while the sky stays blue. Abso­lutely worth it.

Sup­port Thomas’ small and intim­ate enter­prise by lik­ing his page on Face­book and stay­ing in touch over new tours and boat­rides he’ll offer in the future. By the way: does any­one know what those crazy people are try­ing to fish out of the Spree? We saw a couple of anglers along­side the way and I’d be stunned to hear that there are any edible creatures in these pes­ted waters…