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Before coming to Italy we had planned to travel around Italy a lot. However, San Giorgio is so alluring that it hasn’t happened. Now in 2012 we are starting to travel within and without Italy. So at the end of May we went with Pam and Michael from Tavernelle to Berlin.
Hotel: great. We stayed in the Hampton by Hilton hotel. It is located in Charlottenburg which is the shopping area of Berlin. The hotel was very comfortable, good size rooms, very good staff and excellent breakfast inclued in the price of about 100 euros for a double room. The rooms has airconditioning which was great as:
Weather: was very hot. 30 degrees and sunny. Promised rain and cooler weather didn’t materialise and we realised that we had brought the wrong clothes. This meant we had to stop for cool drinks which was easy as the Berlin is full of nice bars and cafes and all reasonably
Priced. We were surprised how cheap it was compared to Italy. A prosecco in the hotel bar was 2.50euros a glass. This is the same price as our beach bar at Torette. Eating out was good value and meals were “substantial”. Eating out also gave me an opportunity to practice my
German: I had practiced my responses to normal questions such as: “are you ready to order”, “would you like red wine or white wine”. My hopes of impressing Pam, Michael and Bill were dashed when the first question asked by the waitress was ” do you want me to light the candles”. That phrase wasn’t in my text book and so the waitress seeing my distressed look switched to perfect English. Of course my confidence in my spoken German has already been dented when the taxi driver from the airport to the hotel hadn’t understood the address even when I repeated it 3 times. Fortunately to enjoy Berlin German isn’t really necessary as some
Museums etc: leave one speechless. The highlight for me was the Pergamon museum complete with reconstructed Greek, Roman and Bablyonian buildings. We also got to see the Charlottenburg palace which was worth visiting for the pleasant gardens. Unfortunately the “must see” part of the palace was closed on the day we visited.