Berlin to Amsterdam

I am a Brit living in Australia and plan to visit Germany next September/October for 6 weeks. I want to visit the main places of interest and end up in Amsterdam. I would love any advice on the best route to take, eg. which is the best airport to fly into to? I plan to do the trip by train/bus.

Do you think I could reasonably do this in 6 weeks?

Thank you, Samantha

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Hi Sam,

You will no doubt get lots of advice on this forum for your trip! Firstly Munich and Frankfurt are the main entry points for long-haul airlines so you may consider starting your trip there (although I wouldn%26#39;t spend too much time in Frankfurt itself). If you are flying from another European destination it is easy to get to Berlin on low cost airlines - www.skyscanner.net is a good search engine that gets you the best price on the low cost airlines. In Germany itself train or car are the best options to get around, surprisingly there is not a good national coach network like National Express in the UK. The Deutsche Bahn website (www.bahn.de) is also in English and will advise you the best ticket to buy, although the fare structure is very complex. Many Germans buy annual Bahn Cards that give a discount of either 25% or 50% on the ticket price. There are also discounts for groups of two or more so it is cheaper if you have friends! If you are still young enough there are European Rail passes that may be better value – and get you to Amsterdam – I’m not up to date on these but either Google will help or someone might give advice on this thread..

Sights? Berlin has plenty, it is a rapidly changing city full of diverse attractions. It is the most cosmopolitan of all the German cities and easy to get by if you can’t speak German (not the case in many German cities and towns). I live in Hamburg and would naturally advise that you visit the city – it is only 1.5 hours from Berlin by Inter City Express (ICE) train. As for elsewhere – it depends what you want to see – scenery in the north of the country is flat and relatively boring, from the middle to the south the countryside is more undulating with forests, castles and hills – rising to the Alps in south Bavaria. Train is an ideal way to explore as the rail connections are excellent and cover most of the country. Munich is worth a visit, if only for the bier! Cologne is also a lively city and has it’s impressive Dom. Try to incorporate some local festivals into your visit – Oktoberfest naturally in September but there are also other beer festivals and Weinfest. Most, if not all, German towns and villages have something going on. There are also excellent gardens, zoos, museums, theme parks and boat trips.

You will enjoy your 6 weeks here, you will no doubt only end up seeing a fraction of what you want to see. Germany is very different to the UK (or Oz) and the way Germans enjoy life is also unlike the British, but interesting all the same.

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FYI - the 144 train goes from berlin to amsterdam (takes about 6 hrs) - i took this route earlier this year and really enjoyed it.

my train car was basically empty and the 1st class have little cars and i had one to myself for 95% of the trip.

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for rail timetables, go to www.bahn.de --%26gt; Internat. Guests

There are 3 direct InterCity (IC) trains a day, which start in Berlin Zoologischer Garten at 8:45 12:45 and 16:45 and take 6h 4mins to Amsterdam Centraal. If you book early enough, you can get a 2nd class fare for only 29 €. Tickets can be bought online and printed at your home pc, just need a credit card (which you also have to show to the conductor on the train).

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I am having a problem sending the message....hopefully it won%26#39;t go through 6 times!! Thank you so much for your helpful advice...plenty of food for thought there. My initial thoughts are to fly into Munich and then travel by train, staying in places for a few days at a time...continuing onto Amsterdam.

I didn%26#39;t realise the Oktoberfest was in September - I thought it was in October. Will that be a problem for last minute accommodations...I plan to do the low road - hostels, etc.

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OK so the train takes 6 hours and its a little over an hour to fly.

How long can i expect it to take me to get to Tegel from a hotel close to Alexanderplatz?

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For direct flights from Australia I think you%26#39;ll only have the choice between Frankfurt and Munich as destination airports.

Normal train tickets are quite expensive, best deal in your case will be a German Rail Pass:

railplus.com.au/europe_by_rail/german_railpa…

There is no national bus network.

September/October is quite a nice time to travel, esp. in the uplands and the Bavarian Alps.

http://www.germany-tourism.de/

With a rail pass the airport you fly in plays not really a big role.

To Amsterdam buy just a normal ticket from the German/Dutch border to Amsterdam (~ 25-30 EUR).

Oktoberfest

http://www.oktoberfest.de

Either go there and book soon or avoid it.

For shorter trips you don%26#39;t need to use a pass day of your railpass, you can find cheap day tickets for

- places inside the same local public transport network

e.g. Berlin to Potsdam (BVG zones ABC)

http://www.bvg.de/index.php/en/Bvg/Start

Nuremberg to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (VGN)

http://www.vgn.de/?language=en

Cologne to Düsseldorf (VRR/VRS)

http://www.vrr.de/en/

- places in the same Land (= German state), esp. if it%26#39;s a route served by local trains only

e.g. Munich to Hohenschwangau (for Neuschwanstein Castle)

http://www.neuschwanstein.de

can be done on the Bavaria-Ticket, one of the Länder-Tickets

bahn.de/p/…laender_tickets.shtml

These tickets cover only local trains (S-Bahn, RB, RE, IRE). And in some states (e.g. Bavaria) also all other local public transport (U-Bahn, trams, buses).

Route?

Depends of course on your interests. You can spent 6 weeks just visiting visitor mines or listening to the most famous organs.

Make some fix points, e.g. Oktoberfest (time and place fix), the places which are a must see for you (e.g. Berlin). And than check what would fit nicely in between according to your interests. Esp. if it comes to small nice towns these are quite fairly distributed all over the country.

As it is free with a German Rail Pass you should not miss a cruise with the KD boats on the Middle Rhine

http://www.k-d.com/englisch/index.html

http://www.talderloreley.de/index.en.php

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Having read this forum for a while, I would add the advice that you shouldn%26#39;t rush from place to place in order to see all you can, because you might end up seeing nothing at all. Abalada%26#39;s advice is a good one, locate some points of interest (I would think Berlin is a must, the rest depends on your personal interest). Are you more of a hiker or are you a culture lover who wants to experience contemporary culture? Are you interested in history or museums or in high tech? There is a huge variety of choices. Some %26quot;traditional%26quot; points of interest would include (from south to north)

the Bavarian Alps (maybe including Neuschwanstein castle)

the Schwarzwald area for hiking (Freiburg is a nice medium-size city for a stay)

Rothenburg ob der Tauber (medieval city from a picture-book)

Nuremberg or Würzburg for their castles

Trier (one of the oldest German cities of Roman origin)

Dresden (very nice city with lots of old buildings - allegedly one of the nicest German cities)

the Rhine Valley from Wiesbaden to Koblenz including the famous Loreley (a must if you were Japanese ;-))

Cologne with its enormous Dome

Berlin (capital and the most rapidly changing German city)

Hamburg (one of Europe%26#39;s biggest harbours)

maybe somewhere at the sea (Stralsund, the island Rügen, Lübeck or some other destinations)

via Bremen (very %26quot;northern%26quot; city with a long tradition in trading (Hanse))

to Amsterdam.

It does NOT make sense to cramp all of this and more into your six weeks, so you need to take decisions. For better advice, you should give us an idea of your interests.

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