Whirlwind Germany Tour

For sightseeing ideas in Hamburg, please see my thread further down 'Hamburg in the Rain' and responses.

If you aren't already committed to the hop-on/hop-off deal in Berlin, I'd suggest reconsidering that. To me, Berlin is a city for going inside historical sights and museums, not for drinking in a lot of beautiful architecture, of which there frankly isn't a great deal in Berlin proper because of wartime destruction. I don't think you'll get an awful lot of value from the hop-on/hop-off bus, unless you are really only using it for the narration, to get a bit of historical background. If there are no mobility issues, consider a walking tour to start if there's a themed one timed appropriately (since you have less than a full day in the city), then maybe pick one sight you especially want to see. It's your jet-lag day, so you probably won't be at maximum alertness.

Alternatively, you could look for a short bus tour whose reason for existence is to point out some highlights but that doesn't keep stopping to drop off and pick up passengers. There are boat trips, too, but I spent so much time in the museums that I never found time to take one.

I will warn you that in the summer (may be somewhat better in October) I encountered hour-long lines at some of the major Museuminseln museums. Some of the Cold War sights (particularly the House at Checkpoint Charlie and the DDR Museum) were very, very crowded, though the entry lines were not long. Other 20th-century historical sites were much less busy. Another potential issue is that Berlin's sights are more spread out than those in many other cities. The S-Bahn and U-Bahn are efficient, but you have so little time that I'd suggest picking one area and sticking to it, or taking a taxi.

Berlin and Bavaria are both treasure troves of experiences, and kudos to you for trying to at least get some piece of those experiences despite the time limitations. View them as the briefest of introductions, and the foundation for future travel.

About Berlin: I highly recommend taking one of these tours of Berlin. We did it when it was called
Terry's Tours. Look at their website. This will be a stellar use of your limited time as you will get a personal and in depth feel for the city. It will make you want to return for sure.
http://www.brewersberlintours.com/

About your itinerary: Given your schedule, I might recommend that you travel FIRST to Munich. Once you return to Hamburg you can always use Hamburg as a base to travel to Berlin. That is only a 90 minute train ride as opposed to Hamburg to Munich which is 6 hours. You will have ultimate flexibility with your rail pass, but it doesn't make the trips any shorter.:)
You might do something like this:
Arrive in Hamburg and immediately train it to Bavaria. It would be a REALLY long travel day, but would allow you to arrive in the Munich area by early evening. If you have to use 6 hours of your time traveling, doing it at the beginning rather than in the middle would be better. That would give you three nights in Bavaria prior to heading back north to Hamburg on Sunday night. Even if you can't get a night train you can take a late train and just check into your business hotel late that night. Use Monday to spend the day in Berlin. See Hamburg after your meetings on Tues/Weds. (In our opinion Hamburg is not nearly as interesting as Berlin or the Munich area.)

Munich itself has lots to see, and it is also the perfect base for day trips. With your pass you will be free to explore based on interest, weather etc This forum has lots of thread about ideas for exploring Munich and that part of Bavaria. One of our favorite day trips (using our rail pass)from Munich was to
http://www.berchtesgadener-land.com/en/home. We have done the Eagle's Nest tour as well as the boat ride on Königssee. I don't think you will have time for both of those things, but if the weather is good the view from the Eagle's Nest is something you will never forget.

Don't forget that on Sunday in Germany many stores will be closed. Restaurants are open of course.

Good luck with your planning. It should be a wonderful time of year to be in Germany.

Depending on the difficulty of your journey & your stamina, you may be spending most of your Berlin time in bed recovering from jetlag. I'd prefer seeing Hamburg during that short time rather than a bunch of train stations. I do realize I'm in the minority. The preferred way of Americans doing Europe seems to be a new day, a new city.

Cfile, I'm getting tired just reading your itinerary. Is there any way to start this a few days earlier, or have a few days after your meetings? If you can't get any more days, what about cutting out the Berlin part and focusing just on Bavaria as that's your preferred area to see? That would allow you more time, and would make for a much more enjoyable time, I would think. Of course my younger version would agree with your current plans, so this is just my middle-aged self speaking out here.

Although I would never try to cover so much ground in a few days, I think for someone dead set on going to both Berlin and Munich in such a short time, TravelingMom's idea is a good one: Knock out that dreadfully long train ride while you're fog-bound anyway.

In our opinion Hamburg is not nearly as interesting as Berlin or the Munich area.

It depends what you mean by "area". Berlin area is easy. It's Berlin and Potsdam. Around it: pine forest. Well, we could add Spreewald. That's what people connect with the Berlin area.

But Munich area? Does Berchtesgaden and Neuschwanstein count in? In that case for Hamburg; Bremen, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Schwerin, the North Frisian, and West Baltic Sea coast would also count in, because the time on the train is about the same. Tons of sights.

Jetlag schmetlag! Hit the ground running! You can sleep in your meetings! LOL You have a clear plan (although the idea of Munich first is a good one) - go for it! As someone posted - use this as a foundation for a future trip.

I would add - skip the HOHO and take a smaller tour. The bike tours are great - you cover a lot of ground but it is close up and in small groups - they even have electric assist bikes if needed - but Berlin is easy peasy riding - DH did it at 75 on a regular bike.

If you take many trains you will find yourselves at our word we added to the German language:

Sitzenwaitenplatz - the bench on train platform - we are just not sure if it has enough letters to really be German!

Hi,

After the work business is over, you could take the Hamburg-Munich night train, that is, if you decide to skip Berlin. If it comes skipping one or the other, I would skip Munich. But then you say you want to see Bavaria and Munich, it's up to your setting the priorities. Don't bet on the "berth" accommodation still existing on the night train, although the night service still is in operation.

The waiting room at German train stations is "Wartesaal" Lost and Found is "Fundstelle" How to identify your coach number and which number precedes it and follows it is "Wagenstandanzeiger" In Austria they use another word to convey that iinformation..."Wagenreihung" What other signage? In the ATM? The choice of doing the transaction in English or German is offerred on the screen.

Drop the HoHo bus tours. So boring. You have such a small amount of time in these cities, put it to good use and have a more memorable trip by doing something a lot more interesting. Pick either a walking tour or bike tour where ever you go.

That said, I would rather visit some more towns up north than spend all day on trains going south to Bavaria, Munich and the Alps and then back north again. There is beautiful countryside, medieval towns, and lots of castles to be seen in Saxony as well as around Berlin. Potsdam perhaps, Dresden, Quendlinburg, Lübeck, Seiffen, or the Spreewald.

For a short amount of time, I recommend taking the Hop On, Hop Off bus. A few reasons:

--you get an overall view of the city as well as an overall feel for where everything is

--commentary on what you are seeing (in English)

--the ability to get on and off at sights you want to visit without having to worry about figuring out the public transit system.

--some tours can be bundled with discount tickets to sites you may want to visit.

For longer visits, then walking tours or taking a guidebook with you are better. Every city is different. You have to decide what will be better for your needs.

Thanks for all the replies.

We are not really museum people. We'd much rather see the countryside and smaller villages than city centers. About the only thing we are interested in in Berlin would be the wall and Checkpoint Charlie.

What should we do with the 1 1/2 days in Munich? I plan to see Munich for the 1/2 day, and then spend the full day taking the trains to see the Alps, castles, and villages. What would be the best most efficient route to see what rural southern Germany is like?

We are not really museum people. We'd much rather see the countryside and smaller villages than city centers. About the only thing we are interested in in Berlin would be the wall and Checkpoint Charlie.

If you want to see countryside, you have to take local trains and HoHo the train instead of a tour bus. It's easy.

Checkpoint Charlie isn't too interesting. It's a small post between city houses. Same for the wall, there is only a small preserved site in Berlin city centre, at other places it's only a cobblestone line in the street to make people remember. At most places, there isn't any remains at all. If you want to see "the wall" as most Germans experienced it, visit the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmstedt%E2%80%93Marienborn_border_crossing instead. It's a huge open air museum. You can do that as a side trip of your train ride from Hamburg to Munich.

Mixing in you want to see countryside, go by train from Hamburg to Hannover, there you hop on the local train to Magdeburg. That train will stop in Helmstedt. Take a short taxi ride (about 5kms on the autobahn) to the Grenzübergangsstelle. Visit the museum and take the taxi back to Helmstedt. Visit Helmstedt, it's picturesque. Back on the train to Hannover, stop in Braunschweig (also worth a visit, but not this time) and switch to the local train to Goslar. It's a medieval city with a lot of intersting sights. You should end the day there. Next day continue your journey south on local trains.

There are many Cold War sites in Berlin that make for meaningful visits. This web site lists a lot of them.

Checkpoint Charlie isn't much of anything at this point except hordes of tourists. I very much enjoyed the museum-like House at Checkpoint Charlie, however, despite its being extremely crowded when I was there. It has a great deal of information about escape attempts.

The Palace of Tears (Tranenpalast) is a site with museum-like displays, focusing on the process by which Germans could get approved for legal visits across the border.

The Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauerstrasse is also worthwhile.

Those are just three examples. You could also take a Cold War tour.

Hi,

I agree with the suggestion of going to Helmstedt if you're interested in cold war times. That place was the last place, the Grenzübergangstelle, in West Germany before crossing over to East Germany by train and taking its Reichsbahn to (West) Berlin. To avoid all the commie red tape, hassle by the Vopos on the train, one flew to Berlin Tegel from Hannover-Langenhagen, which I did.

No, the train crossing was at Oebisfelde, 15kms north. There are some remains of the border in Oebisfelde, but nothing spectacular.

I vividly remember our visits at relatives who lived in the GDR. Because my parents fled in 1964 (through a minefield), we always had an extra-thorough inspection. One time my father told me to cry aloud (was about six years old then) in front of the inspection shack and from that on they never again made an inspection going into the GDR. Seems that guy made a record it wasn't worth the bullying. (Out of GDR: sure, always inspection.)

(Note: it wasn't Vopos at the border, but selected military and Stasi only. And of course the Grenzübergangsstelle was the first place in East Germany. Helmstedt was the last town in the West, right before the border. There wasn't any border control on the West German side, because West Germany did not acknowledge the border. Same for citizenship and passports, people from East Germany were acknowledged as Germans, not GDR citizens by the BRD.)

Thanks for the exact information on the Grenzübergangstelle. I avoided going over by train in the '70s and '80s via Helmstedt, that's why I flew.. Looking back, maybe I should have done it once, just to have the experience.