I am very excited as I have just bought tickets and hotel for a friend and myself to go to Berln for 4 nights late October. She has never been there, so it will be fun to show her what I know and then see some new places, too.

We will also go to see Polina Semionova in Swan Lake ( wish it had been a different ballet.. but.. ). How about a nice café recommendation near the Deutsches Oper?

We will be staying at the Melia Berlin, which I understand is quite nice. I think we got a very good deal considering the flights are nearly 175 euros, but with 4 nts hotel including bufffet breakfast, each one of us pays 355 euros from Valencia Spain on Swiss Airlines.. So that makes the hotel 90E incl. tax and breakfast. Not bad!

I have taken note of some of your favorite eateries.. but more suggestions are always welcome.

Can one just have dessert and coffee at the Reichstag top floor restaurant?

Which of the Museums has a particularly nice café?

Weather permitting, we will do a boat tour, walking tour in Spanish of the Third Reich one day, and see the sights most tourists enjoy.

If anyone has any additonal suggestions of activites not to be missed that weekend, please send me to the website.(Oct 29-Nov 2)

Thanks.

Hi lin,

We just returned from a week in Berlin yesterday. Will post a trip report soon. To answer you Qs:

<i>Can one just have dessert and coffee at the Reichstag top floor restaurant?</i>

I'm not sure, but we had dinner there. You can certainly send them an email and inquire.

<i>Which of the Museums has a particularly nice café? </i>

We enjoyed the newly-renovated cafe at the Bode Museum (on Museumsinsel). We only had coffee there, so i can't vouch for the food.

We also liked the modern cafe at the Collection Scharf-Gerstenberg. It is across the street from Berggruen Museum (across from Schloss Charlottenburg). We ate lunch there, and it mainly serves sandwiches, soups, and salads.

The Sarah Weiner Restaurant at Hamburger Bahnhof is supposed to be very good. http://www.sarahwieners.de/html/?show=sarah.wiener We didn't eat there as the prices were too high for us.

Lastly, we also ate at the cafe at Gemaldegalerie in Kulturforum. The food was fine, but setting was so-so.

BTW, I think the ballet is performed at Staatsoper Unter den Linden, not the Deutsche Oper?

I did write the restaurant for a reservation but they failed to answer that question. I will send another inquiry.

This particular ballet and many others are at the Deutsche Oper.

Thanks for the recommendations. It is always good to know which of the museums is more worth eating lunch at.

There is quite a famous old world high end cafe right next to the opera house (if that's where you're going), whose name escapes me but you cannot miss it. In addition to having a mile-long pastry case, it does modest lunches (soups, pastas) at very moderate prices. Perhaps someone else will pop in with the name.

I loved my stay at the Melia. My favorite meal in Berlin was a stone's throw away, on the Spree next to the Berliner Ensemble, at a brasserie called Ganymede. After a lot of unspiced German food, I also relished the cheap kebab I bought down the street from the hotel (take a left after heading out the front door. It's near the cabaret theater there.)

After the Reichstag dome, I found the Museum of the Berlin Wall to be the single most fascinating thing I did in a city full of fascinations. The museum is quite small, and right at the longest standing stretch of remaining wall. It is news video rich, and very user friendly (but whether it offers languages other than English and German, I can't remember).

lin,
I stayed at Melia in July. The location is perfect,
there are many restaurants and bars just across the bridge - 5 min away. Ask for a room in the courtyard - the hotel is on a busy street
U-bahn and S-bahn are 2 min. from the hotel.
I had lunch on the top of Reichstag, noticed 2 people who had a beer each and shared one dish.

Perfect info.. thanks!

For the hotel I was going to do Priceline ( which apart from good deals entertains me) but for this level hotel we weren't going to be saving too much . This way, if any friends decide to join us, they can still get the same deal.

I am really looking forward to this short trip. Berlin is always exciting.

>>>Can one just have dessert and coffee at the Reichstag top floor restaurant?<<<

Yes, of course. But they will be pretty frustrated if you reserve between 19:00 and 20:00 and you eat just dessert and coffee. For a reservation past 21:00 it won't be any problem. If you want to reserve earlier, be fair and tell them. They will appreciate. And once you are in the building (bypassed the lines), you can walk through the glass dome ad libitum.

Our reservation is for later than proper dinner time. Thanks.

We are booked at the Melia for our trip to Berlin in just 7 weeks - so very much looking forward to this return trip!

I've been scouring the various sites for interesting dining tips and will certainly try the gourmet floor at KaWaDe...sounds fabulous and allows one to try various things.

timeout.com has some good info as do the boards at chowhound.com and 10best.com.

Waiting to go to the airport. Will write a short report when I return.

Unfortunately I fell off a chair two days ago and am somewhat impeded.. no walking tour for me.

Earlier the same morning I almost sliced off the tip of my index finger.. still wearing bandage for that.

I did NOTHING the rest of the day.. I was feeling so jinxed.

Have a good trip, lin!

First of all, thanks for al the restaurant suggestions. As you will see, we did not take advantage of ANY of them! It just worked out that way. We ate or snacked where we were except for two sit down meals.Our breakfast was so complete that we weren't really hungry for much except coffee or a chocolate most of the day.

We did try the wurst across the street at a little place that always seemed busy.

The trip:

Our Swiss flight arrived a bit late, but once our luggage came we were on our way.

Upon arriving we got tickets to go into town, taking the TXL bus to Friedrichstrasse, and walked the 300-400m to our hotel, the Meliá.

It was chilly but we were happy it was not raining. The bus trip goes past so many monuments, and by this time they were al lit up.

Our hotel was in a great location. U bahn out the door to the left. Schnellbahn across the street and left, canal boats to the right across the small street.. and buses around the corner. You can walk most everywhere from here.

We later walked that evening ( 5 minutes?) to the Museum Insel to see the dome of the Bode Museum and a few important, VERY IMPRESSIVE, not to be missed rooms of the Pergamon. The museums were free Thursdays from 6pm until 10 pm.

Strolling home via different streets we came across 12 Apostles and went in and shared a huge pizza we could not finish between the two of us. This place has some atmosphere, with interestingly painted ceilings in each large room but plenty of noise to go with it in the evenings, but it was fun.

The next morning after a breakfast spread that included everything under the sun and more, we went directly to the mauer museum platform and archives up near nordbahnhof.

Later that morning we took a wonderful 4 hour boat cruise along the Spree and canals. It was a sunny, chilly autumn day, and couldn't have been nicer. The trees had turned but many leaves were still on the limbs. The ones that had fallen decorated the grass and sidewalks making the surroundings look like an impressionist painting. By today when we left, so many of the branches were almost bare. We were very fortunate in our timing for this trip.

We had uncommon sunny weather for the four days! (Did I already say that!)

After getting a more in depth feeling for the layout of the city through the 100 and 200 and other buses, we took a little rest before our pre-planned dinner with friends at the Reichstag. Our German exchange student and his mother drove four hours to see me, so it was a very warm encounter.

The restaurant at night is pricey, has a nice terrace view, but as all here have mentioned, it is great for skipping the sometimes tedious line. Otherwise, not necessary, although not disappointing. It was a lovely evening.

The rest of the weekend was spent seeing the Judische Museum, Gallerie Lafayette, Gendarmmarkt, and most all other monuments and special architectural sites.

We also stopped at the Berliner Information Center at Gendarmmarkt that has a beautiful model of "Old Berlin" made by a local man who recently died.

There is an Association supporting the re-building of the Palace that was destroyed. We had an interesting (to say the least) talk with a Spanish woman who volunteers her time there, as do many others, in support of this future project.

She also gave us insight as to what it was to live in Berlin the past 40 years.. having in-laws on the other side of the Wall, etc.

She walked us out to show us some unusual new residential buildings nearby and notified us of who was coming towards us on the street.

It was Vladimir Malakhov and Polina Semionova, the lead dancers of the ballet we were going to see that evening, and what had prompted this Berlin trip to begin with!


...as they walked past within arm’s reach, it was just magical.

We later headed off to the ballet, enjoying a warm snack in the theater's restaurant before the performance.

Sunday we took the train to Wannsee with our AB passes and bought a Berlin Extension ticket for 1.40 euros to go to Potsdam, which is in Zone C.

Had I known which ticket to buy earlier, I would have been able to jump out of the train, validate this new ticket in the machine and continue on the next train to Potsdam that came in a minute. But since I was not sure which one to buy, until the train personnel helped me, we missed that train.

Fortunately there was another in less than 15 minutes.

We took a commentated bus tour once there that we booked in the Potsdam train station, that on Sunday was very lively with all shops open.

Again, the great weather and sunny skies made the outing more appreciated.

This morning we took the TXL bus again to the airport. We had plenty of time, but it DID take almost 50 minutes to get there. Your AB pass goes as far as the airport. These passes are for 24 HOURS, not one day.

It is nice to be back, especially since it started to rain as we left the country. We couldn't help comment how lucky we had been, although, if it HAS to rain, Berlin certainly has plenty to do inside!

Welcome back lincasanova!

Thanks!