After our visit to the East Side Gallery and our lunch in the sunshine, we headed off on foot to find Tacheles. Described in our guide book (the Rough Guide to Berlin) thus, ' a taste of Berlin artists' squatter culture is offered in the multi story counter-cultural workshop' the whole thing looked fascinating .

First stop was Hackeschen Hofe 'a series of elegant early twentieth century courtyards with stylish cafes and boutiques' (Rough Guide)

There are some fun shops including one specialising in Ampelmann ( the little chap from the East German crossing signs) nostalgia.I loved the pink saddle protectors on these bikes!

Next stop was a small art gallery where we had a look round and stopped for a coffee - there was an interesting line in taxidermy in the coffee shop

We continued up the street thinking that according to the map we should be able to spot our destination by now, but all we could see was a rather desolate abandoned building which was showing every indication that it was about to be pulled down. It couldn't be? could it? it was!

The now-abandoned and somewhat forlorn Tacheles building stared out at us and we stared back. After the first initial disappointment we spotted some items of interest

A sculpture here

some graffiti there - and finally the proof positive that we were in the right place although sadly we had missed the party! in all it was a bit of a wild goose chase