Help needed for London-Amsterdam-berlin

. Budget is around 150-200 euro per night

How many is the "family"? Ages?

Hi,
4 adults. Thanks

You can take the train from London to Amsterdam then fly to Berlin. You can take the train between Amsterdam and Berlin, but flying would be quicker. Hopefully you don’t have to back track to London for your return flight.

In Berlin, Checkpoint Charlie is tacky and a waste of time. There are plenty of good museums and attractions such as the Wall and the Holocaust Memorial that can easily fill 5 full days or more. Book tickets in advance for the Reichastag - it’s an interesting tour. We also took a walking tour.

I read about need to transfer train from London to Amsterdam n long queues at Schiphol airport if we fly. Hence in a dilemma. I understand both flight n train have their own pros n cons. But I like to hear your valuable advice esp those who have travelled this route. Thank you!

Thanks for sharing, Jennifer!
Unfortunately our return flight home is from London.

The train from Amsterdam to Berlin takes 6,5 hours, leaving every two hours. That seems much longer than flying, but it is city centre to city centre, without the time-consuming trouble of getting to and from airports on unfamiliar transport, check-in times, body search and all the other assorted hassle. I have done the trip numerous times, and while it is not very exciting, it isn't also not unpleasant, and the seats are much more comfortable than those in an airplane. Bought in advance, it can be as cheap as EUR 49,90 and no hidden extras as for luggage.
I find Berlin Ostbahnhof a much easier station to handle than Hauptbahnhof, and, being not so crowded, the staff most helpful for getting tickets for local transport.

The Eurostar train from London to Amsterdam is direct and takes about 4 hours plus add 45-60 minutes check-in time in London. The other way, Amsterdam to London, is not direct because of security and passport checks in Brussels.

Also, the train from Amsterdam to Berlin can be as cheap as 39.90 euro if you book early enough.

https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/amsterdam-to-berlin-by-train.htm

I know this isn’t exactly what you asked, but have you considered doing London – Paris - Amsterdam instead of Berlin? There are very easy, fast, and direct connections between those three cities by train. Berlin kind of seems like an outlier. Train travel in Europe is a pleasure, much preferable to flying in my humble opinion. I have about a five or six hour tolerance for trains and anything longer than that I will fly.

Also I know you have already made your plane reservations so it’s too late to change this, but in the future definitely book a multi city ticket where are you flying into your first destination and out of your last destination instead of having to backtrack on a round-trip.

Kelly has given good advice. You would get better answers if you said what country you are coming from and how many days you plan to spend in each city. That's because the distances between them (and the time spent) is so large. Has this group ever been to Europe before? Are your bags small enough to afford using "bargain" airlines? (Note that such airlines often use alternate airports that are a little harder or more expensive to get to.)

I like Berlin, but you don't show particularly deep interest in that destination. It is so far away that it may not be the best choice for the third city.

It is not helpful to use old reports about "lines at Schiphol" when the date and results of possible Brexit are unknown. It may be easy or much harder to move between the U.K. and the Continent by the time you make this trip. Other than flying, Amsterdam is not particularly "close" to London. If you bought London round-trip air tickets, you are wasting a lot of your vacation crossing the Channel.

Thank you very much for all your insights and tips! My apologies if I wasn’t clear when I mentioned that we will be starting n ending our holiday with London. Appreciate all of you taking time to help me. I didn’t think about possible aftermath of Brexit on our travel.
My daughter will be finishing her exchange programme in London so we will be flying from
Singapore to meet her in London before proceeding to hopefully 2 other cities.
My tentative plan is 3 nights in each city (Amsterdam n Berlin) before our last leg in London. In Amsterdam, we would like to visit Museums n Anne Frank House n Berlin: historical sites n Xmas markets. This will be the first Europe trip for my teenage girls but I had visited Berlin n Amsterdam many years back. We are also exploring other cities that are nearer like Antwerp n Bruges (compared to Berlin). Appreciate your feedback. Thanks again!

Hi Kelly
We are avoiding Paris as we had a very unpleasant experience there once. I did consider buying multi-city tickets but decided on London as we like to do our shopping in London n Heathrow before flying back. Thanks for sharing!

I vote for #1.

Fly from London to Berlin, take the train back to Amsterdam ( I personally would skip Amsterdam). Doing that route may require you to to transfer twice..depending on the route. I take the ICE Berlin to Duisburg but that's in the summer. Winter schedules are different and the some direct connections are fewer.

Very true on Berlin Ostbahnhof compared to Hbf. I agree with that assessment.

1) and 2) I once trained from London to Amsterdam to Berlin over three weeks, the flew back to London.. We chose to train first because we were travelling in late March to early April and weather history indicated that Berlin would be the slowest to warm up so we visited it last. It also gave us longer periods of daylight for our evening strolls in Berlin. With your schedule these qualities might not matter.

3) We stayed at the Hotel Hegra in Amsterdam. The stairs are very steep and the rooms very small but was otherwise excellent.It's near the Jordaan as I recall. In Berlin we had a whole apartment at Belahr Am Potsdamer Platz Aparthotel Berlin.