Hot answers tagged berlin
16
Having a car in Berlin is more hassle than a convenience, just because of the parking situation, and the money you spend on parking meters.
Driving in Berlin is also not exactly fun with the traffic congestion, or much faster than the bus or subway either.
Leave your car at home, save the money and then decide after 3 months if you really need a car in ...
15
For general communist architecture I would start at Alexander Platz and walk down the 'Karl-Marx-Allee' all the way to 'Frankfurter Tor' in Friedrichshain. There is nothing super special there, but the street was used for the big parades and still has a bit of an 'East German' feeling to it.
As for bunkers, there are still many around, some of them from the ...
12
This is the official website where you can get all the informations you asked for (in english as well): http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/visits/index.jsp
Short summary:
There are no restrictions for non-german citizens.
You can participate in a guided tour and you can even watch a debate from the tribune of the reichstag for ~1 hour. You need a ...
11
This wiki is a very good source of info: http://www.prepaid-wiki.de/
Many companies offer prepaid SIM cards. blau.de is a good option. I use a NettoKom SIM card, which is a re-branded blau card that is sold for 5€ in Netto grocery stores; other discount grocery stores (Lidl, ALDI, etc) have their own offerings. A one-month data plan will cost 10-15€.
I ...
9
My favourite communist architecture in Berlin is definitely the Frankfurter Tor and the rest of the "Stalinallee ensemble".
Frankfurter Tor:
Thanks to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons
Stalinallee / Karl-Marx-Allee:
Thanks to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons
Building on Stalinallee / Karl-Marx-Allee:
My own photo
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you ...
9
Any large international car rental firm that operates in both Germany and Spain should work. I just searched via the regular homepages of Hertz and Europcar, and both offered similar rates. It won't be cheap though - around 1000 EUR if you allow only a week for the trip, 2000 if you take a month. Be sure to buy a large enough km package in advance.
9
There is an express bus running from Tegel, called very appropriately TXL. It runs to Alexanderplatz (trip takes 25 min), and passes a few hundred meters from Stadtmitte at Unter den Linden. The closest stop would be Unter den Linden/Friedrichstraße. One ride costs 2.40 € for an adult. (The same ticket will be valid for 2 hours on U-Bahn or S-Bahn within ...
8
This depends on a lot of factors:
The price of the flight is a big one - are you sure MPI won't pay it for you, not even in part?
Health insurance seems to be available for as little as 30 EUR per month, see here, here or here. But note that if you get sick, you still have to pay 10 EUR to visit a doctor (but only once per quarter) and between 5 and 10 EUR ...
8
Being used to German ample vacation times, 5 days seems awfully short to really see much along such a long route, and I'd therefore avoid going the extra distance to the Alps, unless you require your hikes to include spectacular alpine vistas - but if you're staying in Munich for a while, that's a different story.
The most direct route from Berlin to Munich ...
8
Leave the car at home.
As you say, Berlin has "nearly perfect" public transportation coverage. If you find that you want a car for an errand or for a road trip, rent one. In addition to traditional car rental businesses, there are many short-term "car sharing" programs (similar to Zipcar in the US). Taking a taxi is another option.
8
I don't think you can validate the ticket on the train itself. The German page for Kurzstrecken-Tickets states:
"Kurzstreckenfahrscheine that need to be validated have to be validated at the beginning of the journey"
Even though BVG has English pages there doesn't seem to be an equivalent for that page in English.
If this is too vague, you can validate ...
8
One amazing Soviet structure is the World War II memorial in Treptower Park, in the southeast of Berlin. (There are several Soviet war memorials commemorating WW2; another is in the Tiergarten. I haven't seen that one so have no idea what's it's like, but the Treptower one seems to be more well-known / renowned, in my experience.)
Many people seem to like ...
7
You want bvg.de. It has English and German versions, and if you visit the site on a mobile device it'll offer a mobile optimised version. They have an excellent trip planner, covering regional trains, S-Bahn, U-Bahn, Bus, Tram and walking. You can also download various network maps for offline use.
In addition to the website, there are a number of apps ...
7
I've done this several times, renting a flat in Berlin for some weeks up to about a month. Over the years, my platforms of choice have been wg-gesucht.de and zwischenmiete.de. The first one of those had more offers than the second one when I last used it in December 2012. A lot of offers were available on both platforms.
On these platforms you find ...
6
Well, of course it's possible, but it would be very far from desirable, if the 1500 euros has to cover airfare, health insurance and living expenses.
Depending on where you leave from and when you fly, your flight won't be much less than 800 USD, let's say 600 Euro. That leaves you 900 euros for three months.
The cost of health insurance varies, with 100 ...
6
I've been to Berlin a few times, and if I only had a half day I would go check out one of these two abandoned spots (I've been to both already).
http://www.impracticalguide.com/2012/07/berlin-abandoned-hospital.html
http://www.impracticalguide.com/2012/07/berlin-abandoned-spy-station.html
They're not touristy, and I haven't been anywhere like that ...
6
I think you want an extension ticket, but see below.
Short Trip Tickets requiring validation must be validated on starting travel.
The idea is that you need to have one ticket that's valid for your whole trip.
Technically, on the journey out, you may step off the train at the last zone B station, validate the ticket, and step back onto the same train. ...
6
The first one and the third one, i.e. the "Double" cabins are for two people.
The Deluxe cabins are a bit more luxurious and have their private WC and shower. The Economy cabins have only a washbasin. There you have to use a shared toilet. More information on the cabins can be found here.
6
It depends a little bit of the month you want to travel to Berlin, but a bed in a dorm you can get from approximately 5£. In almost all hostels, it is not necessary to pre-book a bed. You can just walk there and see if one is available. However, during the high season it might be a good idea to pre-book at least the day before, or to show up not to late in ...
6
If you go to the website of the Russian embassy in Germany, you can find (although a bit hidden) a page where they state that the consular department started since 8. January 2013 to process digital visa applications coming from Consulate Portal of Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry.
So if you go to that site you should be able to get your Visa
Otherwise, ...
5
Take the brown U5 metro out towards Hönow. Built by East Germany (the only major new line they built in 50 years, as it happens), the line's sole purpose in life is to serve huge housing complexes, which are about as Communist in style as it gets. This thread on SkyscraperCity will give you some idea:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=482518
...
5
If you go to Hostelbookers (generally a bit cheaper than Hostelworld) and search by price, shared dorm rooms start around a little over 6 quid. In the high season when I was there last year it was still possible to walk into some hostels and get a bed, but not guaranteed, especially around weekends when more people travel and use them.
5
For shopping I'd suggest the area around Kurfürstendamm (not far from Tiergarten).
KaDeWe has a large toy section, there's also a Lego store nearby. Actually, you find pretty much everything at KaDeWe (at relatively high prices, of course). There's a whole floor for food which has a designated "sausage stand".
Berlin's full of classic architecture. Do you ...
4
In the Alps you can find many to go on hikes like:
Nassereith - It's 135 km away from Munich, you can see some photos here
Hochkönig - It's 200km away from Munich and 80 km from Salzburg. It's not very close to Munich but Salzburg is very beautiful city and worth seeing. Also some photos from Hochkönig
On the way from Berlin to Munich you can also visit ...
4
ToAndFromTheAirport.com is a great site for this type of question.
Their page on Berlin lists multiple options for getting to/from Tegel (scroll down to find the section for Tegel/TXL).
4
The answer from @nibot is very good, i just want to add something: You said that you have iPhone, so you need micro-sim and not every operator sells prepaid-micro-sim-cards. So i find that page:
http://www.der-prepaid-vergleich.de/Micro-sim/micro-sim-prepaid-tarife.html
3
I've had a good experience with Fonic.
As of the time I'm writing this, they offer a 500MB data plan for 10 euro a month.
They also have a very convenient website (though it is in German, it's usable through Google translate), which allows you to perform almost all the actions you might need.
Also, they have a customer service number which (usually after ...
3
Leipzig and Dresden are obvious stops along this road. As you have already been there you might consider something different.
I suggest that you go to the Spreewald, and then to Nürnberg. This way you will be able to combine nature and a city. You love the outdoors, then Spreewald is interesting. It is a destination for summer and winter holidays. Each ...
2
Standard tourist locations are museums, Fernsehturm, Zoo etc., so I think you'd like to avoid that.
There are many ways to spend single afternoon. You could for example visit Mauerpark or just wander through the alleys of Kreuzberg or somewhere near the city center. Just wandering without specified aim is a quite good way to spend free time.
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