Karyn's Picks and Pans: Berlin

Here is a handy thing if you are ever planning to travel to Berlin. I review where we stayed, where we ate, and what we did. It helps to know my experiences with these things, right? After all, people wouldn't have need to read travel writing if it didn't help them plan their vacations.

- BaxPax Downtown Hostel/Hotel: This is a fairly new hostel that opened about a year ago and is ideally located in the Mitte, convenient to Friederichstrasse (a major public transportation station), and very close to the Spree River. Also very close to the Museum Island, where Berlin's major museums are located, and right around the corner from Unter den Linden and Orienenburgerstrasse…two major tourist areas. We had a quad room with a private bathroom. The toilet was actually in a little closet out in the hallway, which wasn't terribly convenient at night, but at least it was our private toilet. We had a shower located in the room. The quad room had a bunk bed and two singles. It was spacious and clean, but very spare and basic. Three nights cost us about $78 per person, and the service was very friendly. It was surprisingly quiet too, for as many people that were staying there. Sheets and towels cost extra (3,50 euros for the whole stay), and we had to pay a 5 euro deposit on each key card that we needed. Breakfast was an additional 4,50. It was buffet style (cereal, breads, meats, cheeses, salad, tea, coffee, juice), but since we didn't really eat much of it, I thought we could've gotten a better breakfast deal somewhere else…Berlin has about a million Dunkin' Donuts, for example. Anyway, if you want to travel cheap, this is certainly a place to consider. http://www.baxpax.de/downtown/en/home/

- Our first night there, we ate at a German pub called Anna Koschke. I'm not quite sure where it is, except it was some side street off Orienenburgerstrasse. It's a local dive anyway, and probably not comfortable for people who don't know their way around a German menu. I liked it. They had few choices, but the girls and I ate meatballs with potato salad and pickles, and ordered a side of garlic bread. Sue had ham and asparagus baked with cheese, and a starter of potato soup with sausage, which she really loved. The food was cheap and incredibly generous and the service was excellent. There was only one guy working there, but he spoke great English and he told us about the history of the pub. We walked out of there totally stuffed, but my cousins got a great introduction to German food, which can sometimes be a scary thing for those who are not into breaded and fried things.
http://www.anna-koschke.de/ (in German only)

* Unter den Linden - walk down this amazing street, where at one end, you are greeted with a view of Brandenburg Gate. At the other, you get to see the magnificent Berlin Dom, Opera Palace, and Humboldt University.

* Reichstag - go after dark to see views of Berlin from the glass cupola on top. Admission is free, but you will have to wait in a long line and go through security (it is the German Parliament building, after all). It's open until 10pm, but we were there just before 10 and they were letting in people later than that. Anyway, it's incredible…just don't look straight down if you have vertigo (which I do).

* Berlin Zoo - always worth seeing. Got to see Knut's first show of the day…from a distance though. And the crowds were insane. But we still got a pretty good look at him from where we were. Behold:




I also got a very close-up look at their one remaining Giant Panda (the other one died recently), and we had a funny encounter with a King Vulture that still makes me giggle every time I think about it. He just stood there for several minutes with his wings outstretched, and he kept turning around…like he was modeling for photographs. Lori and I were in hysterics watching this.



Berlin Zoo is the best zoo I have ever been to. The grounds are beautiful, with lovely gardens and sculptures. The buildings are unique and don't look like typical zoo buildings.

* Charlottenburg Palace - I have to admit, I was very disappointed with this. Lance and I tried to see the palace on our first trip to Berlin, and we were unable to. The insides are just fancy wallpapered and furnished rooms. It might be interesting if you've never seen a palace before. But since we have, I thought it was pretty boring…I've seen far better. The outside is nice and the gardens are worth a look. On your way there from the subway station, watch out for angry old men on bicycles…or just don't walk on the bike path.

* Maredo Restaurant - This is a German chain restaurant that you'll see in several major cities. It's Tex-Mex, I suppose, and a steakhouse. I've found tacos and quesadillas and the like to be quite disappointing in every one of these types of restaurants I've encountered in Europe (not Maredo, specifically, but any Mexican restaurant), so I stuck to a basic grilled chicken with fries and sangria. Adequate and not too expensive…not mind-blowing. The service was good, and the restaurant seems to be fairly popular. We ate at the one at Potsdamer Platz, but I saw another one at Unter den Linden. We all had the chicken fuego, which was tender and juicy…but again, nothing special. http://www.maredo.de/

* Wintergarten Cabaret - Very very much a tourist trap, but so incredibly awesome! The show we saw, Rizoma, is only playing for a limited time, but it was very similar to what I've seen in Cirque du Soleil. And the soundtrack for the show was AWESOME. Dude, a contortionist performed to Portishead. You can't get much cooler than that. They had a photographer there to take our picture when we came in…the souvenir photo was 5 euros. It was a great photo, so I bought it. They do offer food there, but it's seriously overpriced. The drinks are also incredibly expensive. But order something while you're there, even if it's just a beer and nachos or something. The food looked really good, but I'm glad we ate elsewhere before the show. We were given postcards of the show during intermission, which we could send to anyone anywhere in the world at their expense. I sent one to myself, with a reminder to remember that evening always. Also, we wore jeans, but most people there will be dressed up. But even if you come as you are, they are incredibly friendly and warm to you. Cabaret is a huge part of Berlin's history, so it's really one of those things you have to do to get the whole Berlin experience. My cousins said this was probably their favorite thing about Berlin (aside from the Pergamon Museum...more on that later).
http://www.wintergarten-variete.de/

* East Side Gallery - If you're going to see any part of the Berlin Wall, this would be the part to see. It's a bit out of the way, but it's the longest and most artistic part of the wall. The art is really amazing. As for the other wall-related sites…skip them. Checkpoint Charlie is a tourist trap and totally not worth your time. If you decide to go, skip the museum and just check out the bustling crowds on the outside. It's mildly interesting. There is also the Topographie des Terrors exhibit - about the Nazi movement in Berlin - but my cousins seemed rather bored. I had already seen it once, so I wasn't that interested. It's mostly in German, anyway.

* Pomme de Terre (Arkaden, Potzdamer Platz) - AVOID THIS PLACE LIKE THE PLAGUE! It's in the shopping mall in Potsdamer Platz, so it's a typical food court type of place, except they, theoretically, are supposed to be full-service. I say theoretically, because we sat at our table…and waited…and waited…and waited. We were ignored. And the woman who was seated after us was nearly done eating by the time they even came to take our order (we didn't leave because Sue was engrossed in journal writing once we sat down, and far be it from me to interrupt that). This place specializes in German potato pancakes, but you can also get boiled potatoes or baked potatoes with various toppings. The food was okay. But because of the rotten service, you want to stay away. My three travel companions got their food finally…and they had entirely forgotten mine. So they were nearly done eating by the time I even got my food. And then they forgot to give us the check! We put money on the table and left. It should not take 2 hours to eat at a place that's supposedly fast food. Our service was so bad that a nice woman who had been dining alone grabbed the waitress's attention and chewed her out on our behalf. If you want potato pancakes, find somewhere else to go. Far and away, the worst (non)service we got on this trip.

* Berliner Dom - Very pretty on the inside, but I was more interested in the sarcophagi - particularly those of Sophie Charlotte (of Charlottenburg Palace fame) and her husband. The crypt is nice and creepy.

* Operncafe - I wrote about this place in my Berlin travel guide (for sidestep.com), and since we were waiting for 6 pm to roll around in order to get into the museums for free, I thought we should try it, since it was very close to Museum Island (you'll find it at the Opera Palace, across the street from Humboldt University). This café's claim to fame is its cake buffet. Germans have "kaffee und kuchen" - coffee and cake - think of it kind of like the late afternoon British tea. Operncafe has at least 100 kinds of cakes. If your brain doesn't explode from all the choices, you tell your selection to the waiter, who will then serve you. All four of us had something different, but we tasted each other's cakes. I had the Sacher Torte (chocolate cake with a layer of apricot filling), which was everyone's favorite. The cakes don't taste quite as sweet as they look, but they are still delicious, and the atmosphere of the café is great…it's very elegant (except for the 80's pop that was playing, which seemed contradictory to the ambience…we were in an opera palace, after all).

Mmmmmmmmm...cake!

* Museum Island - If you want to see the museums here, wait until after 6 pm on Thursdays, when admission is free. We went to two: the Alte Nationalgalerie, which my artist aunt and former art major cousin didn't particularly like (sorry, German painters), and the Pergamon Museum. If you see no other museum in Berlin, you MUST SEE THIS ONE! We were blown away by the sheer size and scale of the exhibits in there. It's Greek, Roman, and Middle Eastern antiquities that have nothing to do with German culture, but there is no other place on earth where you can see this stuff. I hear the Bode Museum is also very good, but we were done once we left the Pergamon...we just wanted to find a place to eat dinner and then go back to the hostel to relax.

* Fuoco - This Italian place on Orienenburgerstrasse was just picked at random. We were in the mood for pizza, so we went to the first place we could find that had it. I was surprised how long it took us to find an Italian restaurant...there were so many Indian and Thai places on that street. Anyway, I liked it. They brought out some munchies with our drinks...black olives and I think bread (don't quote me on that...we ate at SO MANY places). The prices were good. The food was pretty typical of any Italian place you go to here in Germany. The service was nice. What I really liked were the cushy black leather seats we sank into at our tables...perfectly relaxing after such a long day. What really impressed Sue, I guess, were the Turkish water pipes that people kept smoking there. They had hookahs on the menu, with various flavors of tobacco, and we seemed to be the only ones not smoking one. The restaurant filled up with the aroma of weirdly scented tobaccos, but it was actually more tolerable than cigarette smoke. Anyway, I liked the ambience of the place...it was really warm and dark.

Okay, more later. Subsequent posts will be shorter, because the rest of our trips were only day trips.

ICEing it to Berlin

Friday morning, Lance and I left for Berlin. It’s a huge city, and two days doesn’t even begin to cover it, but we chose it so Lance could have the experience of riding the high-speed train (known as the ICE, or InterCityExpress), something he’s talked about doing since we got here.

The high speed train left a lot to be desired. We were unable to secure seat reservations for the 4-hour ride going into Berlin, and that turned out to be a pain. We paid good money to ride the train, and spent most of the time sitting in the section between train cars. This is where the restrooms are and constant traffic. So we didn’t particularly enjoy the trip, although overall, I would say that riding the ICE feels a lot like riding an airplane. It’s just a bit quieter and you’re a lot closer to the ground.

We arrived in Berlin around 2, and dealt with the confusion of trying to figure out how to get from point A (the Berlin Zoo, which is where the train station is located) to point B (our hotel). The route required two trips: the U-Bahn to Potsdamer Platz, and then the S-Bahn to Anhalter Bahnhof (essentially, they are both subway systems). We made it to Potsdamer Platz and jumped on the S-Bahn, only to discover that we couldn’t get off at Anhalter Bahnhof in the direction we were going…there was construction! So we had to get off at the next stop and take it in the opposite direction to Anhalter Bahnhof. Finally, we got there, and were happy to find out that our hotel was literally right across the street from the S-Bahn station.

So we checked into our hotel, and it was very nice. Reasonably priced, clean, comfortable, microwave, mini fridge, separate bath and shower (really nice DEEP bathtub!), and they left chocolates in our room. It was about a 10 minute walk to Potsdamer Platz, 15 minutes to Brandenburg Gate, 10 minutes to Checkpoint Charlie.

We spent the afternoon after our arrival just walking around the immediate area of our hotel. We came across a section of the Berlin Wall, still in its original location. Right next to it was the “Topography of Terrors” exhibit, located at what used to be Nazi headquarters. We didn’t see that because it was really crowded. But it was essentially a pictorial of Nazi horrors.

We walked up to Potsdamer Platz to check out that area. All the development in the area is really recent. It’s ultra-modern and contains several cinemas, 2 of which are IMAX, a casino, a theater (currently showing Blue Man Group), hundreds of restaurants, and the Arkaden, which is a huge 3 story mall. It’s essentially one of the major areas of town and crawling with tourists.

After our walk, we decided to get dinner at the Italian restaurant right next door to our hotel. Then we walked down the street for some ice cream. We decided to call it a day. Most of the museums were closed around dinner-time and we weren’t sure if the movie theaters had any English language films (we found out later that they did).

We woke up Saturday morning, ate the hotel’s crappy breakfast (just one plain croissant for each of us, and tea for me). We decided to take a city bus tour, one of those “hop on/ hop off” deals. We figured that was the only way we were going to get to see most of Berlin’s sights. We had some time to kill, so we walked around the Arkaden again. Since I had a rather insubstantial breakfast, I went to a bakery and got a “pudding kirsch plunder,” which is this lovely flaky thing with custard and cherry filling. We found the pick-up point for one of the busses, bought our tickets, and waited for it to arrive.

And so the two-hour bus tour began. It was foggy and damp, so it was hard to see things. We were also enclosed, so there was no good way to take pictures. I did manage to get a few good shots through the glass that didn’t have too much glare, but there was so much more that we saw than what I could photograph. We decided that we wanted to get off at Charlottenburg Schloss, which is this huge palace on the edge of town. It was destroyed in WWII but rebuilt and restored to its original splendor. The bus was supposed to stop there, and it did, but not long enough for us to even get off. They announced that they were stopping, Lance and I got out of our seats, and no sooner did we do that than the bus started up again. So we decided to take the S-Bahn back there later in the day. Unfortunately, we never made it back. By the time we saw the other things we wanted to see, it was close to closing time. Too bad too, because there are breathtaking gardens there as well as the interior of the palace.

We got off the bus tour at Potsdamer Platz, got lunch in the Arkaden, then walked up the street to Brandenburg Gate. It’s perhaps the most famous landmark in Berlin, but there is road construction all around it, so our tour bus didn’t even go by it (they claimed that they couldn’t, but other tour companies were taking people there). But we got to actually walk under it and take good pictures, which is better than seeing it from a bus window. After that, we decided to hit Checkpoint Charlie.

Checkpoint Charlie was interesting. But it was also extremely crowded, so Lance decided against going to the museum. We just walked around and snapped a few pictures. Lance checked out the booths selling old Soviet artifacts. He almost bought a Soviet Army hat, but for some reason he talked himself out of it. After that, we decided to hit Potsdamer Platz again to get some breakfasty items and some food to eat on the train. Lance had blisters by then and we were both a little sore, so we just went back to the hotel for the night, only running across the street to the Turkish place to grab dinner to go.

This morning we checked out of our hotel and took the S-Bahn and then the U-Bahn back to the zoo. We wanted to walk around the zoo for awhile, but we weren’t even sure it would be open on Easter. Fortunately, it was, and we spent two hours walking around. Berlin’s zoo is AMAZING! They have giant pandas, which is really exciting (and I got a really great shot of Bao-Bao, which took a lot of time and patience). Their ape house is incredible. They have a special dark exhibit for all their nocturnal animals (I got to see bats actually doing more than just hanging upside down!). They had a seal enclosure and the seals were doing jumps. It was so neat. I think Berlin’s Zoo is one of the best I’ve ever seen. And the grounds are just beautiful – lots of sculptures and statues and fountains. The buildings housing the animals are pretty amazing too. I think I probably took more pictures at the zoo than anywhere else.

Around noon-ish, we went back to the train station and got our luggage out of the locker. I ran into the bookstore to buy some reading material for the trip home ($11 for a freaking English-language magazine…are you kidding me?), we stopped in a grocery to get some drinks (everything is open in the train station on Easter Sunday, apparently). We waited for our train to Dusseldorf. This time, we had assigned seats, so we found our seats and had a quite comfortable trip. I got some sleep. I did a lot of reading. It wasn’t bad at all. It took 4 hours to Dusseldorf and then an additional hour from Dusseldorf to Geilenkirchen, and then we were home.

Anyway, enough of my babble. Pictures! There are 45, so brace yourselves. Again, some of them have glare because I took them through windows, but I did the best I could do. I am quite pleased.

Pictures here