East Side Gallery by boat

Which boat tours pass the East Side Gallery?

The bridges tour from Jannowitzbrücke and the solar catamaran from the Oberbaum Bridge pass it. The 1-hour cruises from Friedrichstraße and the Cathedral don't.

Straight from the operators' route lists:

Sources: the Stern und Kreis C1 route, the Solarwaterworld tours page and GoBoat's route suggestions.

Can you see the East Side Gallery murals from the boat?

Not the famous ones. The paintings face Mühlenstraße; the river side is the back of the wall, with a park in between.

The murals are on the side that once faced East Berlin, along the street, says the gallery's history. This stretch was the inner, or hinterland, wall. Berlin's monument office explains that the real border here was the Kreuzberg bank opposite: nearly the whole river belonged to East Berlin, and no western wall was ever built (Landesdenkmalamt).

From a boat you see the length of the wall, the riverside green and the new towers behind. You don't see Dmitri Vrubel's Fraternal Kiss. The fix is easy: take the boat for the river, then walk Mühlenstraße from the Ostbahnhof to the Oberbaum Bridge, about 1.3 km. The paintings you see today are largely replicas from the 2009 restoration.

What happened on the Spree when the Wall stood?

The river was the border. Five children from Kreuzberg drowned here between 1966 and 1975 because West Berlin rescuers were not allowed into the water.

Because the water belonged to the East, anyone who fell in from the Kreuzberg bank was in East German territory. On 11 May 1975, his fifth birthday, Çetin Mert fell into the Spree at the Gröbenufer near the Oberbaum Bridge. West Berlin firefighters arrived quickly but could not get permission to go in; East German divers recovered his body about an hour later, five metres from the western bank (Chronik der Mauer). He was the fifth child to drown there, after Andreas Senk in 1966, Cengaver Katranci, Siegfried Kroboth and Giuseppe Savoca (East Side Gallery exhibition).

On 29 October 1975 the West Berlin Senate and the GDR signed an agreement allowing rescues from the West in border waters. Look at the Kreuzberg bank as your boat passes. That quiet strip of embankment is where it happened.

What is the story of the Oberbaum Bridge?

Built in 1896 as a road and railway bridge, a pedestrian crossing for West Berliners from December 1963, and reopened to traffic on 9 November 1994.

The double-decker brick bridge carries the U1 and U3 on its upper deck between Warschauer Straße and Schlesisches Tor. After 1961 the western U-Bahn stopped at Schlesisches Tor. From 21 December 1963 the bridge served as a pedestrian checkpoint for West Berliners only. After reunification it was rebuilt, with a steel middle section by Santiago Calatrava, and reopened on 9 November 1994 (Oberbaum Bridge history).

After dark, watch for the neon hands playing rock, paper, scissors under one arch. It is Thorsten Goldberg's Stone - Paper - Scissors, lit since 1997, a joke about the arbitrariness of borders. Both eastern cruises pass under the bridge.

Under the Oberbaum Bridge, past the East Side Gallery, then into the Landwehr Canal and back through Mitte. The whole river in one afternoon.

★ 4.6 · 3 hours 15 minutes · from $40

Explore the bridges and canal tour → Tour details

Can you see the Molecule Man from a boat?

Yes from a GoBoat, whose 1-hour suggested route goes past it. The cruise boats mostly turn west at the Oberbaum Bridge.

Jonathan Borofsky's Molecule Man stands in the Spree between the Elsenbrücke and the Oberbaum Bridge, in front of the Treptowers, where Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg and Treptow meet. Three aluminium figures, about 30 metres tall, installed in 1999 (berlin.de). It is upstream of the cruise harbours, and the solar catamaran heads the other way.

With a self-drive GoBoat from Stralauer Allee 3, you can steer right up to it. GoBoat's own 1-hour route runs east of the Oberbaum Bridge, past the Molecule Man, and turns at the Insel der Jugend; the 2-hour route adds the Rummelsburger See. The boats move at about 3 knots, so plan the way back.

Where else can you see Wall history from the water?

By the Reichstag. Seven white crosses on the Spree bank mark the border there, and every 1-hour Mitte loop passes them.

Behind the east entrance of the Reichstag, the Wall met the riverbank at the Reichstagufer. The south bank was West Berlin, the water East. A citizens' group set up the Weiße Kreuze memorial in 1971 to remember people who died trying to escape; it returned to the Spree bank on 17 June 2003 (Berlin Wall Foundation).

If you only have time for an hour on the water, this is your Wall moment. Both the live-guide cruise and the C4 loop go through the government quarter.

How do you get to the eastern piers?

Jannowitzbrücke: S-Bahn and U8 at Jannowitzbrücke, pier at Rolandufer 4. Solar catamaran and GoBoat: Stralauer Allee 3, about 10 minutes on foot from Warschauer Straße.

The bridges tour leaves from the Jannowitzbrücke landing stage at Rolandufer 4, near Alexanderplatz. Access is by steps. The solar catamaran and GoBoat share the harbour at Stralauer Allee 3, behind the nhow hotel and about 150 metres from the Oberbaum Bridge. GoBoat asks you to arrive 15 minutes early.

Pair it with a walk: from Warschauer Straße cross the Oberbaum Bridge, or walk Mühlenstraße past the murals to the Ostbahnhof. Our Spree walking guide has the distances.

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