living in Berlin: what to visit
Jul 30th, 2001, 12:52 AM
#1
Guest
Posts: n/a
living in Berlin: what to visit
I'm going to Berlin in autumn, to stay there for almost one year. I've got some ideas about what to visit some weekendss -Prague, Hamburg, Dresden-Leipzig and surroundings...-but would like to have more ideas about what to do on weekends and so. <BR>I'm from southern Europe, and we rarely see snow, on the mountains it is sometimes, but on the streets almost never, so, I'd like to know if, being such a flat area but so cold as well, there is any near skiing spot without having to go to the Alps. <BR>Another question, should I drive to Berlin (1,900 km), since I'll almost never use it inside the city but it might be useful to do the trips, or should I fly there and try to go by train and bus to those places (by the way, although there are very good Autobahne, how are their conditions in Winter?
Jul 30th, 2001, 02:42 AM
#3
Guest
Posts: n/a
Fodors <BR> <BR>Berlin is brilliant for cycling. Cycle paths, cycle crossings, use of the metro any time. But in winter you need leather gloves and a woollen scarf. <BR> <BR> <BR>I'm afraid greater Berlin and Brandenburg are too flat to ski. But Poland is a night away, and two websites have links to cover skiing there, cheaper than in west Europe: http://www.polandtour.org/ <BR>and http://www.welcome.pl/index.shtml/. <BR>There may be something, too, in http://www.inyourpocket.com/. And in any case, these sites will give you ideas for pleasant weekends any season of the year. <BR> <BR>If you talk (in English) with the enquiries clerks of the travel centres of any great station in Berlin you'll find that with a second class ticket and a berth in a 3-berth sleeper you can go overnight to Gdansk, Warsaw, Lublin, and Krakow. With such a berth and a change to Zakopane, capital town of Polish skiing. With a Beautiful Weekend ticket to Gorlitz, from where a bus to Polish Zgorzelec is a US dollar, and another to Jelenia Gora and Poland mountains is ten dollars. <BR> <BR>Slovakia is even cheaper than Poland, and strong on skiing, just north of Poprad Tatry. If you leave Berlin about 1700 and change to the Excelsior Express at Usti nad Labem (a 500 meter walk or taxi) you'll be in Poprad Tatry bout 1100. <BR> <BR>In Germany both trains and autobahns are good. They invented autobahns, and keep them up well, winter included. The advantage of trains is to cover 800 kilometers asleep, overnight. You can get some idea of rail services if you use http://www.bahn.de, then click on "International Guests". Overnight you can reach Amsterdam, the Ruhr, the Rhineland, Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, the Black Forest, Basel, Munich, Zurich, and Vienna. <BR> <BR>Please write if I can help further. Welcome to the cold countries. <BR> <BR>Ben Haines, London <BR>[email protected] <BR> <BR> <BR>
Jul 30th, 2001, 02:02 PM
#4
Guest
Posts: n/a
Berlin is great - I envy you! <BR> <BR>You might enjoy exploring the Harz Mountains (about 150 km west of Berlin) <BR>great walking in summer, some skiing (I think) in winter. I lived for a year in Goettingen, and didn't have a car - bicycle, train and bus were fine. <BR> <BR>I seem to remember that there were excellent rail discount cards available - with one you could get half price tickets on most trains. <BR> <BR>I rented a car for 2 weeks at the end of my stay - by then I knew where I wanted to explore.
Jul 31st, 2005, 10:53 AM
#5
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 1,682
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
May I write more fully ?
You will enjoy a web site http://www.hiddeneurope.co.uk/. A click on Home will tell you how to phone them, to ask to tell you the cost of their magazine and to send you a specimen. The magazine is in English, and run by two people who live in Berlin. You could mention my name if you like. My only connection is a common interest in non-standard travel. You can of course go to all the standard places that tourists go to, but you have time to go off to non-standard places, many of them cheap.
At the Travel Centre in any big station in Berlin staff speak English and take credit cards. You should buy there the Thomas Cook European rail Timetable, which is English, and is sold in Berlin with a German cover and at a lower price than in London. Services change little, so you can buy any issue you find on sale. If you choose a time with little public pressure (perhaps Monday afternoon) you may find Rail staff who can tell you of long weekends a night away, at low cost, or you can ask the helpful American staff at their Euraide office on the ground floor on the north side of Berlin Zoo station. They charge the same for tickets that the Travel Centre staff do. There are a detailed and able survey of rail travel country by country at http://www.seat61.com/, and my note on getting the best from sleepers and couchettes at http://www.geocities.com/rexbickers/...ghttrains.htm/.
Page 2 of the Cook timetable shows public holidays across Europe. For Germany I think these are October 1 to 3, December 24 to 26, December 31 to January 2, March 24 to 27, May 5 to 7, and May 13 to 15. If you look at the map of major lines on pages 44 and 45 you will see these routes, each of which offer an overnight journey:-
Lund, a fine old university city, Copenhagen (overnight via Trelleborg, not in deep winter and not nightly), Warsaw (not too good, as Hitler tore down the centre), Krakow (a leading Baroque city, with strong night life, including Jewish, and Ausschwitz next door, grim, but you want to see it), Poprad Tatry (for skiing in the Tatra mountains after Christmas) Kosice (a Baroque city with especially good icons in the museum), Bratislava (fairly small Baroque city, full of tourists), Vienna, Budapest (a bit of a long night), Munich, Zurich, the Swiss Alps, Brussels, Paris, London (overnight if you take Eurostar between Brussels and London. Costs in Slovakia are a half of those on Berlin, and those in Hungary are low, too.
If you hurry from your work on Friday you can reach in an evening Poznan (where the city square is thoroughly Polish), Gorlitz (little-known trading city of the eighteenth century), Dresden, Leipzig, Gottingen, Prague (over-run with tourists, so I prefer Usti nad Labem, then bus trips to the fine old towns in the Ore mountains), Brandenburg (good Baroque, but rather small), Hanover (busy), Hamburg (very busy, wholly rebuilt after we bombed it, strong night life) and Stralsund and Griefswald (little known seaports with many beautiful streets in the centre).
Please write if I can help further.
Ben Haines, London
[email protected]
You will enjoy a web site http://www.hiddeneurope.co.uk/. A click on Home will tell you how to phone them, to ask to tell you the cost of their magazine and to send you a specimen. The magazine is in English, and run by two people who live in Berlin. You could mention my name if you like. My only connection is a common interest in non-standard travel. You can of course go to all the standard places that tourists go to, but you have time to go off to non-standard places, many of them cheap.
At the Travel Centre in any big station in Berlin staff speak English and take credit cards. You should buy there the Thomas Cook European rail Timetable, which is English, and is sold in Berlin with a German cover and at a lower price than in London. Services change little, so you can buy any issue you find on sale. If you choose a time with little public pressure (perhaps Monday afternoon) you may find Rail staff who can tell you of long weekends a night away, at low cost, or you can ask the helpful American staff at their Euraide office on the ground floor on the north side of Berlin Zoo station. They charge the same for tickets that the Travel Centre staff do. There are a detailed and able survey of rail travel country by country at http://www.seat61.com/, and my note on getting the best from sleepers and couchettes at http://www.geocities.com/rexbickers/...ghttrains.htm/.
Page 2 of the Cook timetable shows public holidays across Europe. For Germany I think these are October 1 to 3, December 24 to 26, December 31 to January 2, March 24 to 27, May 5 to 7, and May 13 to 15. If you look at the map of major lines on pages 44 and 45 you will see these routes, each of which offer an overnight journey:-
Lund, a fine old university city, Copenhagen (overnight via Trelleborg, not in deep winter and not nightly), Warsaw (not too good, as Hitler tore down the centre), Krakow (a leading Baroque city, with strong night life, including Jewish, and Ausschwitz next door, grim, but you want to see it), Poprad Tatry (for skiing in the Tatra mountains after Christmas) Kosice (a Baroque city with especially good icons in the museum), Bratislava (fairly small Baroque city, full of tourists), Vienna, Budapest (a bit of a long night), Munich, Zurich, the Swiss Alps, Brussels, Paris, London (overnight if you take Eurostar between Brussels and London. Costs in Slovakia are a half of those on Berlin, and those in Hungary are low, too.
If you hurry from your work on Friday you can reach in an evening Poznan (where the city square is thoroughly Polish), Gorlitz (little-known trading city of the eighteenth century), Dresden, Leipzig, Gottingen, Prague (over-run with tourists, so I prefer Usti nad Labem, then bus trips to the fine old towns in the Ore mountains), Brandenburg (good Baroque, but rather small), Hanover (busy), Hamburg (very busy, wholly rebuilt after we bombed it, strong night life) and Stralsund and Griefswald (little known seaports with many beautiful streets in the centre).
Please write if I can help further.
Ben Haines, London
[email protected]
Jul 31st, 2005, 11:16 AM
#6
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 1,682
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I forgot to mention no-frills flights. Sites to look into include these. But please also look at rail times and fares, since an overnight train may save travel time and a hotel or hostel bill.
Air Berlin and Aerolloyd fly from Germany to many Mediterranean and north African airports. http://www.airberlin.com and http://www.aerolloyd.de
Easyjet fly from Berlin Schoenefelde and Berlin Tegel to Budapest. http://www.easyjet.com
Germania. Fly from Berlin to Cologne to Berlin and Frtankfurt. http://www.germania.flug/.
A site for cheap flights from Germany is http://www.traveloverland.de: search the "Top-Angebote Europa"
Ben Haines
Air Berlin and Aerolloyd fly from Germany to many Mediterranean and north African airports. http://www.airberlin.com and http://www.aerolloyd.de
Easyjet fly from Berlin Schoenefelde and Berlin Tegel to Budapest. http://www.easyjet.com
Germania. Fly from Berlin to Cologne to Berlin and Frtankfurt. http://www.germania.flug/.
A site for cheap flights from Germany is http://www.traveloverland.de: search the "Top-Angebote Europa"
Ben Haines
