Essence of Berlin is a market leader in private tours, virtual experiences, cruise ship shore excursions, and corporate events, with tens of thousands of satisfied clients from all over the world..
We are a collaboration between long-time Berliners, and husband and wife, Boris and Joanna Coronado. Boris moved to the city in 1999, and was mentored for years by local guiding legend Terry Brewer – who led tours across the Berlin Wall for Allied military and diplomatic personnel during the Cold War. Now Boris is one of the longest-tenured and most sought after guides in the city. Joanna arrived in Berlin from Poland in 2004, at 18 years-old, to study law. She began working in tourism and hotel management to supplement her studies, and has since become one of the most renowned and respected tour operators in the German capital – her name now a byword for organisational excellence.
Together, Boris and Jo wanted to pool their experience (nearly four decades worth) and share their passion for the city that has become their home – to help visitors experience the essence of the German capital. Local knowledge is the core of our business.
We work with a select team of the best, professional local guides, use the most comfortable vehicles with the most experienced drivers, and stay at the cutting edge of Berlin’s dining and cultural scenes and contemporary socio-political developments. We curate bespoke experiences based on the individual needs and wishes of our clients. We organise personalised tours – from history to shopping to drinking and dining – as well as private concierge services. We also host school groups, corporate events, and weekend city breaks.
In 2019 Essence of Berlin began working with Amazon.com as a Featured Partner to build a revolutionary new platform: Amazon Explore – allowing customers to do live, online tours from the comfort of their homes.
Virtual tourism makes travel more accessible than ever before: it not only allows those, who would otherwise not be able to travel to visit any corner of the planet – it is also more affordable and much more environmentally-friendly than classical travel.
At the time we never would have guessed that with the events of 2020, virtual tourism would wind up being the only way so many of us around the world could travel.
Our Berlin virtual experiences have been such a success, that Amazon invited us to become a one of their 3 Preferred Partners across the entire platform. After conducting thousands of tours, our local Berlin expert guide team contacted our professional experienced colleagues from other countries to form Vexperio.com – a new upcoming platform offering virtual tours and experiences all over the world.
Currently we offer fantastic experiences in Madrid, Barcelona, Venice, Rome and Edinburgh in addition to Berlin – with many more locations in active development. Whilst we are working on our new page VEXPERIO.com you can find all our currently offered virtual tours on EssenceOfBerlin.com – with new ones added weekly!
As we wait for regular travel to return so we can guide visitors through the wonders of Berlin in person, we are so excited to keep these virtual tours as a part of our permanent portfolio. From curated themed tours for corporate teams to educational, interactive history lessons for school groups and even connecting with locals for dance lessons and cooking classes, virtual experiences really can bring the world to you.