I was attending a conference in Berlin, I had the pleasure of sharing my stay with my father.
We flew from London Gatwick to the new Berlin Brandenburg airport.
Upon arriving and getting through passport control, we bought an ABC train ticket and took the FEX train from Berlin Brandenburg to Berlin Central Station, and transferred to the s-bahn (right at the top of the station) to connect to the S7/9 to Tiergarten. The FEX was quite busy, standing room only. The total journey was about 1h15.
We booked the Novotel Tiergarten, it was picked due to its location to the conference and an easy access to walk around and/or to use the s-bahn.
During out stay, we visited (mostly my father);
- Tiergarten
- Brandenburg Gate
- Reichstag
- Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe
- East Side Gallery (Berlin wall)
- Olympic Park
- Berlin Cathedral
On our final day, we took the no.9 s-bahn back to the airport to save changing trains but mid-way our train was cancelled mid-journey, so we had to re-route with the aid of google maps back onto the FEX!
Getting around
For June, July and August 2022, there is a Monatskarte train ticket (see here), this ticket gives you unlimited travel for a month for 9 euro – this is a limited special offer. Note for it to be valid you need a pen, to write your name on it, and you need to stamp it to activate it. I didn’t find this out until my last day!!
We found the trains a little confusing as the routes were not well advertised, but they did have digital screens showing the train and its end destination. We did have some lucky guesses a few times.
Germany in pictures
Summary
Berlin is an interesting place to visit, it has a mixture of new and old, and is full of history. Right now its a great place to visit for a short trip especially as travel is currently inexpensive (for June, July, August 2022)
Cost of this trip (purchased in April) – LGW – BER return – £80 pp + £120 (2 nights/room only) .
Eating out
Food was easy to find, we ate moderately paying between 12-18 euro each. A pint of beer was around 5-6 euro. The stations cafe’s offered good baked goods and coffee for a few euros each.
Currywurst which should be tried was 7 euro, but around 12 with chips. which was possibly a bit on the higher side but when in Berlin!
What I didn’t like about Berlin
Berlin has a young vibe, but that appears to bring with it a large amount of graffiti, many buildings were tagged, which didn’t look great.
e-scooters were annoying (both riders and being left in the middle of pavements). Like in the UK e-scooters rental is available, but they were left everywhere, people riding them took no care and weaved in and out of people, you needed to be constantly on-guard.
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