Those of you who know me well know that I love good street art. So I was pumped when Alice found a Street Art walking tour on the net. This was our first introduction to walking tours and we were hooked right away.
Our meeting spot was Alexander Platz (underneath the ugly TV tower) outside Starbucks (a popular meeting spot for any walking tour in Europe as we'd soon find out!). We knew we were in the right place but had no idea who we were looking for. Luckily the tour guide saw us loitering and asked if we were waiting for the tour. There was only one other couple who showed up so the guide decided to cancel. Bummer! Luckily for us, he offered to take us all on a really brief tour of some graffiti spots before joining us up with the Alternative Berlin Tour (also run by their company) that had just started in another part of the city.
The first stop on the Alternative tour was an artist squat with a pretty interesting past. A 5 storey building that started its life as a department store in the early 1900s, was turned into an apartment building which over time became overrun with squatters and eventually was taken over by artists. They each have a room where they live, paint / draw, display and sell their artwork. Anyone is allowed to go in and look around but it is frowned upon to take photos inside the artist's rooms which is why I only have photos of the stairwell and hallways.
Our meeting spot was Alexander Platz (underneath the ugly TV tower) outside Starbucks (a popular meeting spot for any walking tour in Europe as we'd soon find out!). We knew we were in the right place but had no idea who we were looking for. Luckily the tour guide saw us loitering and asked if we were waiting for the tour. There was only one other couple who showed up so the guide decided to cancel. Bummer! Luckily for us, he offered to take us all on a really brief tour of some graffiti spots before joining us up with the Alternative Berlin Tour (also run by their company) that had just started in another part of the city.
The first stop on the Alternative tour was an artist squat with a pretty interesting past. A 5 storey building that started its life as a department store in the early 1900s, was turned into an apartment building which over time became overrun with squatters and eventually was taken over by artists. They each have a room where they live, paint / draw, display and sell their artwork. Anyone is allowed to go in and look around but it is frowned upon to take photos inside the artist's rooms which is why I only have photos of the stairwell and hallways.
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| Note the bullet holes from the Battle of Berlin. |
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| Note the headless statues. These heads were shot off by Soviet troops during target practice. |
The funniest stop was probably this house.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a guy from Turkey decided to build his house on this uninhabited land … which he hadn't actually paid for. He lived there for a fair while before the government finally realised. They threatened to evict him so he flipped out, retaliated by cementing every single piece of furniture in the house to the floor.
In a twist of events, the church down the road found records dating back over 100 years that showed the land the old guy's house was built on was actually owned by the church. They liked the guy so much that they let him continue living there for free :)
Our next stop was the YAAM beach bar for a quick drink break. Of course there are no beaches in Berlin but they do know how to make good use of the river ;)
The final stop of the tour was an old bombed out train depot from WW2 that has recently been turned into an alternative entertainment facility hosting around 5 or 6 different nightclubs (each dedicated to a specific style of music like Techno, house, DnB etc) as well as one of Europe's largest indoor skate parks.
All-in-all it was an awesome tour!!!
Great way to see the real Berlin. After the TV Tower, which was fantastic, I did the walk and blew my mind.
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