Where else should I go?

Hey Cary - Since I'm Italian I admit I'm prejudiced BUT - How about a few days in Norhtern italy around Cinque Terre, Portofino, and Santa Margherita. Think you might like it and it should work out with the rest of your trip>

Greg

What about starting in London (or Paris, or Amsterdam)- do some pre-exploring for a romantic get-away trip with wife at a later time. Then fly to Berlin.

Cary,

Since you are going to be in the Berlin area, aside from seeing Berlin...a must-see...spend a day looking and visiting Potsdam. As you exit the Potsdam train station, there are tour companies trying to get you on to their tours. I took one of them...was good in both German and English, but after that you can visit the yorself, especially if you're interested in Prussian history. The place is just fascinating. A little over 2 hrs from Berlin is Dresden, which I find to be Germany's most beautiful city...it's certainly one of the top few.

Absolutely plan to go to Potsdam. That's one full day. I spent 5 days total counting Potsdam in Berlin with no problem. But, another thought would be to go to Dresden for a couple of days. It has spectacular museums and is an interesting city. Another thought might be to go to Weimar. I wish I knew more about getting there. We went by bus when I was a student. But this is where Luther hurled the ink pot at the devil and was very interesting and is a beautiful area. I recently googled it and have been thinking it would be interesting to go back.

Pam

Berlin and Postdam would be nice, and then take the train down to Dresden. Spend a couple of days there, then continue down the train line to Saxon Switzerland. It's a beautiful area on the Elbe, lots of cute towns, bike paths on the river, and a national park with huge rock outcroppings. You can actually take the Dresden S-Bahn line down there.

So here's a sample itinerary -- 2 days Berlin, 1 day Potsdam (day trip), 2 days Dresden, 1 day Saxon Switzerland.

I usually look for something on the way. In this case, Bratislava is convenient to Vienna. In the direction of Berlin are Prague and Dresden. Since you're saving Prague, how about a day in Bratislava, a day in Dresden, and the rest in Berlin (with a side trip to Potsdam)?

If you are only interested in doing Prague together rather than all of the Czech Republic. You might also pick a Czech town for a day/night.

Well, with a week, you could go anywhere, sure. But if you really want to see Berlin, that's at least 3 days (it's very spread out and you could devote a day to each of several areas). So really, you have 3-4 days to see something else besides Berlin. That's very different.

Some of the above suggestions are good, but some are logistically puzzling, I must say...

I would try to keep things simple by doing one of three things in addition to Berlin;

1) Land in Amsterdam, spend 2-3 days train toward Berlin

2) Just stay in that NE corner of Germany and see nearby cities already suggested like Potsdam and Dresden, etc.

3) See the Gdansk area of northern Poland. I know you said you wanted to save Prague and "Poland" for joint travel, but most likely that means southern Poland, Krakow, etc. Gdansk and nearby (see the RS "Eastern Europe" book) has a lot too see but it is so far removed from Krakow that many tourists to Poland skip it. But it's a cinch from Berlin.

Of course, if you decide to ditch Berlin and give yoursel the full week, you could literaly go anywhere from Oslo to Dublin to Madrid to Rome to Athens with discount flights. Impossible for us to narrow that down for you.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I'm definitely committed to Berlin. I really want to see it and it is pretty low on my wife's list, so this is the perfect opportunity. I also like the idea of Amsterdam first. I know it shouldn't matter in the sense of "getting to know" somewhere, but the idea of adding another country is cool.

I want to make sure that I devote enough time to where-ever I go that I don't short change it, but I also know that after about 3-4 days somewhere, I'm usually done. It is weird. We try to treat our European trips as different from "vacations". Our vacations tend to be relaxing and doing nothing. While we define trips as trying to see and experience another culture. I know it is possible to do both, but I feel like when I go to Europe, I want to go and see everything. I like the idea of "slow travel" but when I'm there I can't help but think about how much more I could see. I can sit on the beach and read a book 2 hours away from here and skip the $2000 in plane tickets it takes to get to Europe! :)

But we will spend a couple of really slow days in Austria when we are together.

Cary, I agree completely about keeping busy in Europe. We try to take the equivalent of about one day each week to slow down and only do 1-2 low-key things. But the rest of the time we are full speed ahead. If I wanted to put my feet up and read a book, I would sit on my own deck.

See. Learn. experience.

Amsterdam would be great. The train is 6 hours direct to Berlin. If you book ahead on http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en there is a 78Euro fare ($105).