Gaston College – Germany, 2023

Depart Home for Berlin, Germany 

Arrive in Berlin, Germany 

Airport Transfer
Orientation Walking Tour – The group will become oriented with their neighborhood, the public transportation systems, nearby pharmacies, markets, ATMs, etc. Additionally, an in-depth safety briefing will be provided for what to do incase of an emergency. 

Berlin Walking Tour – Brandenburg Gate, Site of Hitler’s bunker, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Checkpoint Charlie, Gendarmenmarkt, The Berlin Wall and more… 

Welcome Dinner – The group will be taken for an authentic dinner with a wide variety of menu options to cater all diets.

Breakfast & Day Briefing 

Berlin Cold War Walking Tour (approx. 3 hrs) – Follow the ghost-like trail of the death strip and wall, and discover everything there is to know about the Cold War on a fascinating walking tour around Berlin. Learn about where the cold war powers formerly confronted each other, the routines and duties of border guards, Soviet and allied forces, the Stasi and the CIA.

Lunch Break

Reichstag Building – On October 30, 1991, the Council of Elders of the Bundestag decided that the historic Reichstag building by architect Paul Wallot from 1894 should be restored and used as the seat of an all-German parliament. The ruins of the Reichstag building were rebuilt in the 1960s, but were not used as a parliament building. The former Reichstag building was redesigned into a modern working parliament that meets all the requirements for the latest communication, office and workplace technology.

Structured Free Time & Cultural Immersion

Breakfast & Day Briefing 

The Wall Museum – visitors experience the history of the division of Berlin and the most beautiful event of the Germans – the fall of the Berlin Wall, staged using multimedia and with a common thread from the construction of the Wall to its fall in 1989. The Mauer Museum is located in the former mill warehouse at the famous East Side Gallery and the Oberbaumbrücke border station.

Berlin Alternative Walking Tour: Berlin’s air is thick with paint. Its soundtrack is the clack-clack of a spray can in the night. Tags tell as much of a story as five storey murals, a blast from a high pressured fire extinguisher can be as expressive as a centuries old canvas from a Dutch master. Let artists tell you the secrets, the history, the techniques, the rules and the personal stories of graffiti and street art in a walk through a city whose very walls are canvas. This is a comprehensive history of graffiti and its culture.

Breakfast & Day Briefing
Temporary Bauhaus Archive – While the Bauhaus Archive / Museum of Design is being renovated and expanded , the temporary bauhaus archive will provide changing program expos with the collection of the Bauhaus-Archiv, as well as with current issues of design, architecture and society. Please note that the Temporary Archive is a project space in which, for technical reasons, doesn’t show any originals from the collection. 

Lunch Break

Jewish Museum – The Jewish Museum Berlin, which opened to the public in 2001, exhibits the social, political and cultural history of the Jews in Germany from the fourth century to the present, explicitly presenting and integrating, for the first time in postwar Germany, the repercussions of the Holocaust.

Breakfast & Day Briefing

Train to Nüremberg (approx. 3 hrs)

Lunch Break

Nuremberg City Walking Tour – The famous carillon of the Frauenkirche: Männleinlaufen.

Albrecht-Dürer-Haus: The beloved son of Nuremberg, Albrecht Dürer, Sebalduskirche, Hans-Sachs-Platz: the Old Synagogue, Nassauer Haus, etc.

Imperial Castle of Nüremberg – The Imperial Castle is the symbol of Nuremberg. Since the Middle Ages its silhouette has represented the power and importance of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and the outstanding role of the imperial city of Nuremberg.

Train to Munich (approx 2 hrs)

Munich Historical & Cultural Walking Tour –  Karl’s Square, Citizen’s Hall Church, Richard Strauss Fountain, St. Michael’s Church, Asamhof Passage Sendlinger Gate, Rindermarkt, Old Town Hall and more…

Lunch Break

BMW Factory, Plant & Museum – Located in the north of Munich in the immediate vicinity of the Group headquarters, the BMW Museum and BMW Welt has approximately 7,700 employees from over 50 countries on site, 850 of whom are trainees. Every day, around 950 automobiles and more than 3,000 engines are manufactured here.

Breakfast & Day Briefing

Transfer to Neuschwanstein Castle (approx. 2.5 hrs)

Neuschwanstein Castle – This is a 19th-century historicist palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and in honour of Richard Wagner. 

Transfer to Munich (approx. 2.5 hrs)

Free Afternoon

Breakfast & Day Briefing 

Transfer to Dachau (approx. 20 mins)

Dachau Concentration Camp – Established in March 1933, it was the first regular concentration camp established by Nazi government. Heinrich Himmler, police president of Munich, described the camp as “the first camp for political prisoners.”

Transfer to Munich (approx. 20 mins)

Brewery Tour – Look over the shoulders of the master brewers. Take in the intense scent of the original wort. Students will learn interesting facts about beer and its processing, experience the raw materials of brewing, visit the brewhouse and fermentation cellar and learn how filling and storage are done.         

Farewell Dinner – The group will be taken for an authentic dinner with a wide variety of menu options to cater all diets. 

Breakfast & Day Briefing

Airport Transfer 

Depart Munich, Germany for Home