Will Travel: It just occurred to me that we had a long thread discussion about travelling with our teenager son/daughter to Berlin last year. I had completely forgot about it.

The hotel deals you got in Berlin are incredible! I've stayed at the Berlin Westin paying over $200 and was totally disappointed with the old rooms they gave us. How was Mercure an der Charite in terms of immediate neighborhood & street location? I think Hamburg doesn't have a huge room oversupply like Berlin does.

FYI, the Hafencity is far from being completed but you can view the edges that are already built. If your daughter studies German as your son does, you may want to take the harbor tour in German, it's quite facinating. We enjoy Hamburg almost as much as Berlin especially if it's just for exploring,eating,& doing nothing. There is enough variety of things to do without having to schedule the day. There is no must see or must do but plenty of good restaurants.

hsv: Thanks for the tip about Renaissance. Our friends recently stayed there and strongly recommended it. They seemed to have stayed in a renovated room. My daughter prefers to stay closer to the shopping passages as she may wander on her own if I get tired of it. She remembers that Hyatt is closer to the station rather than the Passagen as all of us just stayed there in 2005. Have you heard people complaining about the rooms at the Renaissance or is it a general assumption? I would consider Dorint Sofitel if necessary, but I'm trying to stay within the two hotel chains(Hyatt & Marriott/Renaissance) for point accumulation and to maintain the higher level membership.

DAX - when I was at the Westin Grand, we got an old room, but I could hardly complain at the rate I got. It did have a balcony which was nice.

My daughter and I really liked the Mercure an der Charité. Within one block of the hotel, it's not terribly exciting, although there is a Subway and a Balzac coffee shop right across the street. However, walk two or three blocks and you get right into the thick of things near Oranienburger Tor. The Zinnowitzer U-Bahn on Line 6 couldn't be more than 100 feet from the hotel, and the #200 bus stop is directly in front of the hotel. The rooms are done in a modern minimalist style, but according to my daughter, it's an "expensive minimalist" style. Of course the rooms are not large, but I didn't feel cramped. Ours overlooked a courtyard and was very quiet. My daughter's breakfast was free (although they've now changed the age limit), and the breakfast buffet was excellent. Sadly, my daughter was sick during a large part of our stay in Berlin, but she did really enjoy the time she did have out and about. We both found the staff friendly and helpful. I feel like I might be overlooking some grave flaw, considering the low price, but so far as I can tell, I'm not. (Actually, there is one drawback in that most of the rooms if not all seem to have conjoined twin beds, rather than separated twin beds, but that's fairly typical of German hotels, I think.) My daughter's favorite store was a secondhand store called Garage near Nollendorfplatz where they sell clothes by the kilo - she picked up some vintage pieces including a dirndl that she was very pleased with.

You have to get as much travel as possible now with your teenagers - my son is way too busy to travel with me now with working and post-secondary education.

I was encouraged to hear what you had to say about Hamburg. I think with how much my daughter enjoyed Berlin and Amsterdam and shopping, Hamburg would work well for her. Next week, we are going to Cologne and Paris, so we'll see how she likes those.

DAX,

nothing in particular about the Renaissance, just market rumours...
In general, I do admire the hotel, as it is such a nice brick building and has a very personal touch.
There is no pool, though (but I believe you'd have access to the Marriott's 3 min. up the street).

If your focus should be on the (IMHO pathetic) Europa Passage, the Hyatt and the Renaissance are basically a toss-up regarding their distance. Actually, the Hyatt might even be a bit closer.

HSV: I'm keeping my options open till the last minute. The Renaissance is cancellable till 6PM but the Hyatt is 24 hours before, but they always have plenty of available rooms. Would you say that the Sofitel is surrounded by shops like the Renaissance is?

Will Travel: I agree with you, our kids actually barely have time for us at home, but they still say yes to travelling together if we promise to combine things that they like. Our car radios are set on all the rap stations but I realize that we will see them even less once they get their own driver's license.

Good to hear that you liked Mercure an der Charite. I almost stayed there last October as I had a meeting at the Charite but decided to stay at the Berlin Melia instead. Thanks for the Garage tip, I think my daughter may like that if it's something along the line of the American Rags. She does a lot of theatre where my wife helps with the costuming so they have hit used clothes stores before. I'm a bit concerned however, about sending my wife to rough areas. She gets turned off very quickly and just not quite the risk taking type. How rough is Nollendorfplatz? As far as I know it's a gay/lesbian area and full of rough low income immigrants. Back in the 90's, I wandered into St Georg area in Hamburg at night with my 2 kids (without previous knowledge) and was competely overwhelmed by the drug dealers/needles everywhere plus street prostitutes with their pimps. Fortunately my wife was asleep in the hotel.

My daughter is into theatre also.

I didn't find Nollendorfplatz to be rough. Right when you exit the U-Bahn stop and head to Garage, you will see a large porn shop across the street, but if you disregard that, it looks like a pleasant neighborhood with multicolored apartment blocks that I would guess are probably from the 1950s. I didn't see any needles, prostitutes, or drug dealers, and I walked around the area while my daughter was shopping. Unfortunately, I have seen all of the above quite frequently in Vancouver where we live. I went to a Turkish shop and was able to sit down and have a cappucino and baklava pastry for 2 Euros - hard to match that price anywhere! We did only visit during the day.

If you another direction from the station, there is an area with strip bars, etc. but set up in the most boring way possible.

We'll try to avoid that area of Hamburg - we've managed to avoid the red light district in Amsterdam entirely, and I don't think we missed much by doing so.

We also visited the Garage shop in Kreuzberg on Bergmanstrasse, but according to my daughter it's not nearly so good as the one on Ahornstraße 2 near Nollendorfplatz. There are also a couple of other Garage branches - maybe we'll see them this summer. For our August visit, I've reserved the Ramada Mitte right around the corner from the Charité, because it has a pretty good cancellable rate of 76 Euros - I don't feel like prepaying yet.

Like yours, my daughter thinks used clothes by the kilo sounds like a lot fun. Ever since she went to Holland on her own she learned to like American Rags where they sell used beat up jacket for $400! Definitely a great business concept with hardly any advertising cost. I mapped out the Garage address and found out that it's only a block south of Kurfurstendam, so it can't be that bad. We do plan to go to little Istanbul for our son as he loves Turkish food in Berlin so she can check out the Bergmannstr branch as well. Thanks, it's good to give her something to look forward to in Berlin.

hsv: I should have already known what I'm about to ask you but I just can't remember. I have to figure out whether I have enough Euro to get to the hotel ASAP or need to find a money automat at the airport first. How much approximately would taxi cost from the airport to the Jungfernstieg or the HauptBhf? Will 50 euro be enough for fare and 5-10% tip? It will be 7PM Karfreitag so I imagine it'll take less than 30 minutes, or not really? It should at least be faster than the bus/train assuming rush hour traffic is over by 7:15-7:30 PM.

DAX:

1. Sofitel would be only a few more steps from shopping than the Renaissance - but the shopping is basically just around the corner.

2. EUR 50.00 should be sufficient in any event. Traffic should not be an issue. And cab tariffs are from my understanding no longer dependent on time but rather on mileage, which is constant, of course.

HSV: I appreciate the info, thanks.

Just a heads up:

If I were you, I'd make sure to see the various Easter Fires on the Saturday night before Easter all along the River Elbe from Oevelgoenne on!
It does get smokey, but it's a nice tradition and worth a look IMHO.

HSV: Thanks for the tip! I notice we'll have a 40-50% chance of rain this Saturday. Is there any particular place that you would recommend for dinner with a view of the fireworks or a place that we can walk to see the fireworks? Good food is far more important than good view unless we can have both. I'm not sure how great the restaurant in Oevelgoenne is or whether our jetlag will allow us to stay up late. BTW my new email is [email protected]. I'm not able to open my old email address so I don't have your email address anymore. Let me know if we can invite you for a meal on Saturday or Sunday.

DAX, HSV might disagree with me, but if I were you I would go further west to Blankenese for the Easter Fires. The street which runs along the Elbe in Blankenese is full of restaurants and there are literally dozens of fires. And then you can climb into the beautiful Treppenviertel and view it all from above - the Treppenviertel is a very beautiful, winding, hillside area with over 20,000 steps, lots of overlooks, small sitting areas. Very, very romantic. IMO Blankenese is the best place to be for the Easter bonfires. I hope you enjoy your Hamburg mini-vacation.

<i>Moin</i> bella,

I would not at all disagree - why would I?

I thought of the Oevelgoenne stretch because it is closer to the city center, but of course Blankenese and its Treppenviertel represent a magnificent environment for the occasion (and a strong sense for the tradition among the local citizens).

Ciao
hsv

Thanks all for your input, we are leaving in a few hours from now.

DAX,

Ok,I am anxiously awaiting to hear how you liked Hamburg!!

HSV,

:)

Just returned from our trip yesterday. Hamburg was a fun stop for us at the start of the trip prior to Berlin &amp; Zurich. We managed to explore some new areas that hsv &amp; bellacqui recommended despite our jetlag and time limitation. For the benefit of other Fodorites who may be visiting Hamburg, here are some of my brief impressions of the less explored areas:

Marksstrasse in the Karolinenviertel is an interesting narrow street with some Haight Ashbury hippie elements and a little bit of Berkeley. It was somewhat strange to see “50 somethings” fully grown adults wearing nose rings and other facial rings. There was a huge bric a brac market as we walked toward the Hamburger Dom end of the street. The crowd was twenty to fifty somethings, a bit too old for my daughter who dubbed it much too urban for her (as opposed to her suburban background).

We walked a few blocks north to Schanzenviertel which was a larger area &amp; streets but less interesting beyond the funky multicultural cafes. Both areas have colorful grafitti painted run down buildings but with different atmosphere.

We also explored Eimsbuttel and eventually made it to the Elbe 76 restaurant which we enjoyed for the outgoing friendly crowd and the cool lounge atmosphere with a DJ and the double wall video screen. It’s a nice casual local neighborhood restaurant &amp; lounge in a more upmarket suburb.

I gave my daughter a quick orientation of the downtown shopping area for her to explore on her own armed with her credit card and cellphone as I went to the winestore and Saturn. She came back happy with some unique Kitson canvas shoes from the Gaensemarkt Passage that are not available in California. On the way back she pointed out the Camper shoe store that she also liked on Moenckebergstr next to the Omen store. Her biggest disappointment was the Europa Passage which hsv already warned, it’s a huge mall with not much to offer. We skipped St Georg area as we’ve been there before and didn’t really care to go back after seeing used needles on the sidewalk,

We were hoping to eat at Die Bank but it was closed on Karfreitag and the concierge couldn’t get a table on Saturday so we ended up at the Casse Croute. It was really the best food we had in Hamburg but I imagine it’s nothing like Die Bank. Vapiano was just around the corner from our hotel so we had to try it as well, but the food was more of fast food quality. The young cook made both of our dishes simultaneously trying to impress us Benihana style, however the result was terrible. We ran out of time &amp; energy to go to Ovelgoene, Blankenese,or Ottensen due to jetlag.

One thing that we also enjoyed was staying at the Renaissance where we’ve stayed before when my daughter was 4 years old . The hotel service was really superb and we received so much attention from the staff. They sent us a plate of fruits in the first evening and surprised us with complimentary buffet breakfast every morning; none of it was included in our room rate. The room is nothing like the Hamburg Hyatt rooms, more like a basic traditional room at an older Ritz, but the service certainly matches the Park Hyatt.

DAX, thanks for the report. Sounds like Hamburg was an enjoyable place to be.

Die Bank is not a must IMHO - rather on the pretentious side (with quality not always up to par with the prices). Overall rather nouveau riche for my taste, so you probably did not miss that much.
Hope you enjoyed the rest of your stay (apart from Vapiano, which is, after all, a fast food place) - even though you did miss the Easter Fires by the Elbe (which were beautiful with a very relaxed atmosphere).

hsv: Glad to hear that we didn't miss much on Die Bank. It was strongly recommended by our friends and from your comment I can understand why they liked it so much. Casse Croute wasn't flashy but my daughter did enjoy the food. We walked by the Dorint Sofitel which looks starkly modern and is very close to the Rotherbaum U bahn station, but IMHO the immediate surrounding is nowhere as nice as the Renaissance or Hyatt. We had to miss the fireworks because we were told that they were scheduled for Sunday night by which time we were on the train to Berlin. We never went to the HSV or St Pauli shop because my daughter was more interested in FC Bayern and, believe it or not, she bought their stuffs in Berlin including their red &amp; silver ball &amp; trico. I suppose Berlin sells everything and anything.

Will Travel: Your daughter is older than mine so she should enjoy Hamburg's alternative scenes even more. My daughter enjoyed shopping in West Berlin &amp; Zurich a lot more, most likely because my wife was with her to take her to the right shops. They also went to the Garage shop that you recommended.

The bonfires always take place on the Saturday night before Easter Sunday.

I agree about the immediate vicinity around the Sofitel and the Renaissance (although they are merely 3 min. by foot apart). But the station near the Sofitel is Stadthausbruecke or Jungfernstieg, but definitely not Rotherbaum (which is an altogether different neighbourhood on the Western shore of the Outer Alster Lake, including the University).

You could have got the pathetic football outfit for your daughter in Hamburg as well. While we usually have a lot of taste (and thus would not buy anything related to that obnoxious team), there is always the odd tourist who doesn't appreciate the simple beauty and history of Germany's only team to always have played in the Bundesliga. For those not in the know, e.g. Karstadt Sport at the main station carries even the most tasteless team shirts (and your daughter's ranks at the top!).