An Alternative Experience In Berlin

Berlin is the first place Felix and I went together on a holiday abroad and to date, it is still one of my favourite destinations. There’s just something about the vibrancy of the city and liberation of the people that separates itself from any other place in the world I’ve visited.

As part of our holiday in Berlin, we went on a Real Berlin Experience tour by Alternative Berlin Tours. It was quite the tour around Berlin I must say. We gathered right outside Starbucks by the entrance Alexanderplatz TV Tower at noon and went on our merry way to learn about the extraordinary people and stories Berlin has to tell.

Berlin is scarred by wars and a wall that cut through it for 30 years. It is hewn by politics, soundtracked by radical and vital music in a myriad different geres. It has been illustrated and painted by artists great and unrecognised. The only constant is its magnetic attraction, its tales of rebellion, drawing people from every corner of the world to its darkest corners and most open parks and plazas.
- Alternative Berlin Tours

The tour brought us to various locations in Berlin, from Prenzlauerberg, Mitte to Kreuzberg. As part of the journey, we walked through disparate neighbourhoods of a town that somehow clashed up against each other, whose stories are hidden on every corner, outside every building.

This tour shone a light into the shadows of history and how it affects us in the present day. We went around districts that have changed beyond recognition over the decades, through processes as diverse as squatting, revolution and gentrification.

The experience of the never-ending and ever-changing chaos of Berlin is one I struggle to forget.