woodstockguy

I hope to visit Berlin for 4 nights and Amsterdam for 1 week in mid-May, 2008. Are there any events scheduled in mid-May in either city lf which I should be wary? Will hotel rooms be difficult to book?

I have visited both the Netherlands and Italy in mid-May and was surprised to find hordes of German tourists. Is mid-May a popular time for Germans to vacation?

norrisken

http://www.whatsonwhen.com/sisp/inde...;loc_id=146451

quokka

If you hit the Ascension weekend (2008: May 1) or the Whitsunday weekend (2008: May 11-12 - keep in mind that Monday is a public holiday) things will be very busy indeed. In some parts of the country the schools will have a one-week holiday after Whitsunday. So yes, this is travel time. Many people take advantage of the holidays. Book your hotel room in Berlin well in advance.

hopscotch

Germans flood Holland at that time for the tulips. See Keukenhof.

May has many holidays for Germans. When there is one on a Thursday they use one of their 22+ vacation days as a "bridge day" and take a 4 day weekend. Not much business gets done during May in Germany.

traveller1959

hopscotch:

We have 30 to 32 vacation days + public holidays.

The holidays in May vary from Land to Land, depending on the proportion of Catholics/Protestants.

Business in May is as usual, besides that many conferences happen in May in order to use the period between Easter vacations (two weeks) and summer vacations (six weeks).

hopscotch

I worked in Germany for a couple of years. Not much got done during May. I learned in my first year to plan my vacation around the May holidays to extend my meager 22 days. The Germans got more but I could not recall how many.

hetismij

SInce the Germans now have access to their own coast there are less who travel to the Netherlands.
May will be busy just because it is (in theory at least) tulip time. Not only Germans, but all nationalities.
The Whit holiday (Pentecost, Pinksteren) is the 11 and 12 May this year. The Dutch have the 12th as a holiday.

woodstockguy

Thanks everyone for the information. I'm checking hotels in Berlin arriving Monday 12 May of Whitsunday weekend. Any suggestions? How about apartments for 1 week in Amsterdam, starting 16 May?

altamiro

>SInce the Germans now have access to their own coast there are less who travel to the Netherlands.

???
I am not aware of any period when Germany was a landlocked country without an own coastline. And the North and Baltic Sea coasts were a popular tourist destination from the first days of mass tourism in Germany.

hetismij

During the cold war they had very little coast available, so made use of the Dutch and Belgian coast too, which of course was also the closest for the industrial Ruhrgebied. Since unification more and more Germans head to the old East German coastal resorts, an less often to the Dutch and Belgian coast.
WHilst Germans still visit the Nehterlands for short breaks you are nowadays more likely to meet hordes of Chinese than hordes of Germans in The Netherlands in May.

logos999

That's an interesting theory, but hard to understand since west Germans always go south. Who on earth would prefer a holiday on the baltic coast compared to the adriatic coast or Spain. Just like the Dutch, we go where it's warm.

altamiro

>Who on earth would prefer a holiday on the baltic coast compared to the adriatic coast or Spain.

There are a lot of people going to the Danish coast for holidays. Mainly PDS/"die Linke" voters.

Masochism I guess.

logos999

>PDS/"die Linke
I'm so happy, there aren't any commies living in Bavaria.

Cowboy1968

There should be no shortage of hotel rooms in Berlin, even with the possibility of many tourists making use of the week after Whitsunday, since there are that many hotel rooms available in the city.

Good rates are usually available via www.hrs.com . And when checking the location, any zip code starting with "10..." will identify location in the central districts.

Since the sights are not exclusively grouped in one neighborhood of the city, you will need to use public transportation anyway, so there is not a single "good location" with everything in walking distance.

woodstockguy

My continuing thanks for everyone's replies. Though I must admit the local reference to die Linke voters frequenting Danish coastal resorts puzzled me. Does Die Linke refer to left leaning politics? Why would that pertain to visiting the Danish coast.

Anyway, I'll post more questions later as my plans develop. Nothing like fellow fodorites to provide great information.

logos999

>Die Linke
There's a political party (that likes to change it's name frequently ), that has it's origines in the former GDR communist party.
No Bavarian would vote for them, we tolerate the left, but we hate commies . You'll find that out once you come to southern Germany.
Don't know, what they're doing in Denmark, but it's a lot better to have them there

Cowboy1968

The joke about the Linke Party and Denmark is somewhat based on the prejudices people have about tourist destinations.

Most of these assumptions come from the times when there were no low cost airlines in Europe, and you had to stick to charter flight destinations (mostly around the Mediterranean coast line) if you wanted a somewhat affordable vacation.

Spainish Med coast incl. Balearic & Canary Islands or Adriatic cost in Italy = examples of typical mass tourism destinations

Denmark (or Sweden) = examples for individual tourism

It is part of the image of the traveling German, that the majority prefers a 2 week vacation in the South, experiencing nothing but the beach, the hotel pool, the lunch/dinner buffets, and cheap evening/night entertainment.

altamiro

>Die Linke refer to left leaning politics?

Die Linke is not "left leaning" but really hard-core left. They are not shy of describing themselves this way.

As to the joke about Denmark and chrater tourism - it is not that old. There was a survey about 2 years ago (not representative of course) that tried to correlate voting pattern and holiday destination. The by far favourite destination of the (then PDS) voters was the Danish coast. The CSU voters didnīt come away that well too, Logos