East Side Gallery
Thirteen hundred metres of Wall left standing and painted by a hundred and eighteen artists.
Duration
45 min – 1 hr 30 min
Best time
Early morning
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The East Side Gallery is the longest surviving stretch of the Wall: one thousand three hundred and sixteen metres along the Spree in Friedrichshain. It was painted in the spring of 1990 by a hundred and eighteen artists from twenty-one countries, in the months after the opening.
The kiss between Brezhnev and Honecker, painted by Dmitri Vrubel, is taken from a 1979 photograph: it was a protocol ritual between socialist leaders. The works were repainted identically in 2009, the originals having been destroyed by damp and tagging.
Getting there
S-Bahn or U-Bahn to Warschauer Strasse, or S-Bahn Ostbahnhof: the wall runs between the two, along Mühlenstrasse.
Rules on site
This side was the East side, the one nobody could approach at the time: the original graffiti was on the west. The wall is regularly retagged and some works are illegible.
Other places in Berlin
Brandenburg GateThe arch where Germany was split apart and then stitched back together.
Reichstag domeA glass dome above the debating chamber, where you literally walk on top of Parliament.
Museum IslandFive museums on an island in the Spree, including the bust of Nefertiti and the Ishtar Gate.
- Memorial to the Murdered Jews of EuropeTwo thousand seven hundred and eleven concrete stelae of uneven height, crossed by losing your way in them.