East Side Gallery

“Berlin is poor, but sexy” a former mayor famously declared about the city – discover for yourself why the world fell in love with its urban grit and underground freedoms in this half-day tour of the real, local Berlin. 

Since the fall of the wall in 1989, Berlin has metamorphosed from a Cold War city bound by razor wire and concrete to a vibrant, open city reborn. Seismic change is still ongoing, especially in Europe’s ‘Silicon Valley’ - where an insatiable appetite for innovation ensures Berlin is never static. From its cutting-edge artists, electro-DJs and uber-hip creative intellectuals that trail blaze effortlessly to the bright, bold confidence of Berlin’s neon-lit cabaret bars and nightclubs - the city is constantly abuzz.  Following your insightful local guide through hip districts, multicultural communities and countless creative spaces, you’ll learn how Berlin became a bastion of alternative living and what it’s like to live here today. Get off the beaten track and onto the streets as you explore this distinctive cultural landscape through the eyes of a Berliner. 

Enjoying a private, guided tour with a local will help you discover the sights that tourists so often miss in the artistic center of Kreuzberg. This former working-class area is a place of architectural contrasts and the transforming influx of vibrant immigrants have left it with a strong bohemian element. It hosts a number of great galleries and you will visit the Berlinische Galerie. Experience the humour, subtle nuances, social conventions and psyche of a place over a beer or coffee, and then jot down your guide’s version of “must do Berlin.” 

Anti-authoritarian action and citizen uprisings secured Berlin’s place in history as a hotbed of counterculture and on this private walking tour, you will delve deeply into the city’s rich alternative scene. With your private guide, you will: 

Friedrichshain is one of Berlin’s most eclectic and interesting neighborhoods, is steeped in historic political art, creative self-expression and punky rebel music and on the Private Walking Street and Counterculture Tour of East Berlin you will see contemporary and underground art galleries, urban sculpture, guerilla gardens and soak the neighbourhood’s alternative, Bohemian vibe. A subterranean world of tunnels, storage rooms, air-raid shelters and deserted subway stations once smuggled people East to West. Today entire buildings cloaked in protest murals and rebel-rousing graffiti draw visitors to an artsy counterculture scene where the past lives on in clandestine kitsch cafes, funky bars and slogan-painted techno clubs in disused former Eastern Bloc warehouses. 

This immersive Private Walking Street and Counterculture Tour of East Berlin takes you beyond the typical tourist sites to discover more than Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie, into the city’s lesser-known treasure-troves of Cold War subterfuge and dissent. On the banks of the Spree River, Friedrichstain’s art installations include everything from concrete mixers and barbed wire to 1960s news reels. Stroll Boxhagener Platz and Revaler Strasse to see Soviet-era buildings, GDR-era relics, the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall, the East Side Gallery and Karl-Marx-Allee, a monumental socialist boulevard created by East German leaders as “Germany’s first socialist street.” Experience the artsy Friedrichshain district with its diverse subcultures and storied past.