We were staying only 1 night in Krakow, Poland at the Hostel Giraffe. During check-in I noticed your typical information peg board of flyers for tours, hostels, etc. Amongst them I found one lonely flyer that stood out to me. It was black and edgy looking with the words “ALTERNATIVE BERLIN” on it. It was advertising a FREE walking day tour taking through the underground world of the city. The words of this flyer drew me in a sold me in a heartbeat and I eagerly showed it to Scott. Berlin was now officially added to our list of must go places. Finally a chance to see the other side of a city, the sort of side we like to spend our free time back home in Vancouver. Now all we had to do was show this flyer to Karen and Steve and convince them to come too.

Not at all to our surprise, they were interested and we shortened our time in at Oktoberfest so we could squeeze a day in Berlin to attend this walking tour before they had to fly back home to Canada. The day was overcast with a chance of rain so we all packed our rain gear excited for what we might see for the day. They say each tour is tailored to the needs and general interest of the groups, and we were hoping that it would only be us 4 in the group so we could direct it our way! Thankfully everyone on the tour was in the same mindset as us.

For our tour we were taken to various areas of the city with amazing graffiti work, squat houses, skate parks and awesome art spaces. The artwork we saw is some of the best graffiti work we have seen and all the pieces we saw got a bit of background about the artist and sometimes their intent as well. Half way through the tour it started to down pour rain. We felt great being so prepared but others on the tour came with nothing and got soaked.

There is so much good artwork all over the city, we asked about it. Apparently in Berlin it’s illegal to graffiti, but unlike other cities there’s no law in place forcing building owners to cover it up. Because this usually costs quite a bit of money the building owners don’t paint over it, leaving much of the artwork up. It’s interesting because most of the graffiti was artwork, not some squiggles on the wall that is just vandalism. Almost like an equilibrium has formed between building owners and artists; paint crap and we’ll cover it, but make it worthwhile and we’ll leave it alone.

Check out some of our favorite photos from the day below:

If you come to see this one at night the astronaut actually looks like it is carrying a flag due to the car dealerships flags and it’s lighting located just in front.

This piece and many more bright and colorful images just like it were painted by various artists all on the first floor area of an apartment building that had a large problem with violence and gangs, to the point that people were scared to leave their homes. A campaign was done to clean up the area with art. Many of the images of the people on the walls of are ones who live in the building or who have died, or just random images of faces that make you think. Low and behold the idea worked! There hasn’t been any problems at the base of this building since and for the most part other artists have respected the area and don’t cover up the work with their own.

I could describe everything we saw and learned this day about Berlin that most people never learn or bother to get to know, but it would be quite an epic post. So, in short I’ll say this: After spending 1 day on this tour we want to go back to Berlin one day to experience it some more and sign ourselves up for some of the other tours that Alternative Berlin offers. They are a great bunch of locals that LOVE their hidden side of the city but thankfully of willing to share it with those who are interested.

So if your into grafitti and other underground scene related things, check them out at www.alternativeberlin.com and spend a day with them. You won’t be disappointed!!

Check out the rest of our pics from the day at our flickr album or by clicking on a thumbnail below:

The beautiful city of Barcelona as seen from the top of Park Guell

There was one main attraction that drew us to visit the city of Barcelona. An old friend of ours Dino, told us about this park and how it’s like stepping into a scene from Alice in Wonderland. How every part of the park seems like it’s meant to play with your mind. We told Karen and Steve about this park and they were sold. So they met back up with us after their visit with family friends in Switzerland.

I somehow magically found us a nice apartment to rent for only €100 a night. Located just a few blocks from Las Rambas, the market, and a metro stop. A perfect location and such a blessing for our travels! We were all still feeling pretty ran down after partying for a week solid at Sun & Bass with not much rest afterwards. Having a little place to call our own with a kitchen, 2 bedrooms, and a LIVING ROOM! What a concept! One thing you don’t experience much while backpacking is spending quality time on a couch and we all often mentioned how we missed our couches back home. Almost moreso then our own beds!

After finding out that Karen and Steve would not arrive to Barcelona until late at night we knew what sort of moods they may be in and decided to make their arrival to Barcelona perfect. We gave them our location and directions, went shopping to the market for fresh ingredients and of course some wine, and then cooked all of us some homemade Tacos! Our evening was much like the first evening we met up with each other back in Amsterdam, all of us full of stories, smiles, and excitement.

Then the day finally came, to witness this park and other creations by Gaudi with our own eyes. Karen and Steve started us all of right by waking up, sneaking off to the store, and then making us all breakfast complete with mimosa’s! The plan was to check out as many of Gaudi’s buildings and creations as we could in one day.

The first sight we came across the lampposts that are along Las Rambas. Some of his most earliest commissioned work. Resembling something that looks like it should be in Grandma’s garden as a hanging plant hook, these intricate posts give a busy city street a very organic look. Complete with comfortable curved benches at the base to help you admire his work.

The next two buildings by Gaudi we came across on our route are located on the same street as the lampposts. The first one is the Casa Mila aka known as La Pedrera that is an apartment building. The building does not use any straight lines, thus the exterior of the building is very wavy, with its features bubbling in and out almost like a building one would find on the planet Tatooine (in Star Wars). There is a rooftop area with even more Gaudi goodness to admire that you can pay a fee to view, but it was closed for a private function when we were there.

Just a few block downs from the first building we visited is the Casa Batlló. When you approach the building from the side it looks like peopling are entering through a giant mouth. The rest of the building is a colorful array of mosaic tiles that almost look like flowering vines and each balcony looks like a skull-like masquerade mask. We decided to not pay the fee and explore the inside, as there was a long line and were feeling antsy to get to the park.

This is only half of it… it’s too huge to photograph!

We then took a walk and headed towards the world famous Sagrada Família. A church that was started while Gaudi was still alive but still is not finished. The immense size and crazy amount of intricate work is speculated to take about 200 years to complete, and was started in 1882. The hopeful proposed completion date is set to be for 2026. There are currently 8 spires completed with another 8 even bigger ones to go up. Walking up to this church is a feeling one cannot explain. It’s very dark and gothic looking with, to our opinion, scary looking statue creations in telling the story of Christ on the outside. Not being Christians our self, we wonder how people who follow the religion feel about the look of this church. It’s quite astonishing. One half of the church is built and designed by Gaudi himself, the other half is designed by other architect’s using a similar style but with a more modern approach.

Our last and most looked forward stop on our Gaudi day of sight-seeing was Park Guell, It originally was contracted to be a gated community with the best views of Barcelona. The project flopped and the entire area was turned into one of the most amazing parks in the world. We took the metro from Sagrada Família to the closest stop we could see on the map to the park. This path ended up leading us up a massive hill and towards the back entrance of the park. For anyone planning to go here, we highly suggest to take the same route. A bit of a work out, (however there is some escalators at the steepest parts), you end up at the highest point of the park with a spectacular view of Barcelona below.

You then walk down the winding paths to the main section of the park… however it was a bit hard sometimes to figure out which paths lead up and which ones lead down… almost like walking through an MC Esher painting! We soon found some steps that looked like a easy short cut and heading down on them. Each step was uneven and made you feel drunk as you walked. Looking closely at the steps we were pretty sure this was intended and not just worn over time. Our entire adventure down we felt as if we were being followed by Parakeets. Squak Squak and then we would see a flash of bright green fly by. Are those really here? Are they even native to this area??

Looks like roots!

And then we came to the clearing and saw the majestic pillars supporting a huge platform. Surrounding the platform is a covered pathway with palm trees growing above it, when you look at this from a distance it looks like the supports are actually the roots of the palm trees.

After enjoying the view from the platform we headed down the stairs to check out the majestic pillars. A violinist was playing and the echo inside this area made it sound like it was coming out of surround sound speakers. The entire park is covered in tiny broken pieces of mosaic tile to a precise beauty. We couldn’t help to wonder how long it would take to lay them all down, one by one, and how many times Gaudi’s name was cursed by the men who had to lay them as it must have been such a chore.

Other treasures to find are walkways that give you vertigo and make you feel like your walking sideways all at the same time, stone work that looks like pile of rocks thrown together up close but from a distance actually form into distinct and recognizable designs. Basically, much like our friend Dino described, it’s like walking through a scene in Alice in Wonderland and more!

Looks like a pillar or randomly place rocks….

But from afar said random placed rocks actually begin to form into intricate designs

If you love to spend your free time looking at unique art, enjoying parks, and feeling tripped out, then Park Guell is a must see for you. It’s like being inside an art project designed for entertainment.

Check out the rest of our photos from Barcelona in our flickr album by clicking here.

If you haven’t heard of Banksy before, he’s an anonymous UK based grafitti artist who makes politically charged graffiti artwork around the world. I heard a story one time about him while he was in Isreal. Banksy was in a cab with his gear and asked a cab driver to go to the Palestinian wall. Somehow it came up that he wanted to spray paint on it, and the cab driver told him “no worries man, it’s Sunday and the guards take the day off”. After dropping him off Banksy did 9 pieces of work on the wall (some pictured below) and came back to the cab driver who was laughing his ass off, obviously the Israeli’s don’t take a day off from pointing their guns at the other side. Somehow he had managed to do his thing and get away with it, again. Whether this is true or not it certainly leads to his legend…

I don’t know how he gets away with some of his more creative work, but I’m sure it involves an official looking reflective jacket and perhaps a flashing orange construction light on top of a car. This time though he contacted the Bristol Museum (being his home town) to do an art project inside the museum, and after much bickering about the idea between the head CEO’s and the normal staff the project was allowed, by Bansky terms. He was allowed full access to the museum at night with only a select few members from the museum to see what he was doing.

Longest Line Ever!

The result was nothing anyone would imagine. From the opening day for 3 months straight the line was at least 3 hours long and people traveled to Bristol from all other world to see the exhibit, including us! Our busy European schedule only allowed us 1 day to see Bristol and this exhibit took up that entire day, even though the extra travel and the 4 hour-long line was worth it. Banksy vs. Bristol Museum is the best exhibit we have seen in a museum. Who knew an illegal graffiti artist could accomplish so much. As we stood for hours in that line we often wondered if he was watching his success from afar or disguised as a museum employee since no one knows his identity.

Below is some of the most thought provoking artwork we’ve seen in a museum. You can view the slideshow below fullscreen by pressing the box in the right hand corner!

To see the rest of his work inside the museum, check out our Flickr album by clicking here or on a thumbnail below.