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| Charlottenburg Palace is the only surviving royal residence in Berlin. |
The massive construction cranes that earned the local designation of “official city bird” in the early years after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall are still flying over the city skyline. It is, in fact, hard to believe that the German capital will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its East-West reunification in 2014. Despite sprawling new glass office buildings, for example, that now make Potsdamer Platz look like a futuristic Oz in an area that was a no man’s land between East and West Berlin just 25 years ago, Berlin’s reconstruction continues apace. During our visit a few months ago, we observed several major projects in progress near the city center of Alexanderplatz, and these are just the highlights:
* The complete renovation of the State Opera House.
* The pre-construction phase for the rebuilding by 2020 of Berlin’s Hohenzollern Palace that was knocked down as a pro-socialist political statement by the Russians in 1953.
* The ongoing, underground construction of weather-protected passageways that will connect the five major museums of Berlin’s “Museum Island” on the Spree river starting in 2014.
* The underground construction of a new subway line under Berlin’s famed “Unten den Linden” boulevard that will connect the Brandenburg Gate to the city center at Alexanderplatz. The boulevard’s famed linden trees will be uprooted and replanted.
By virtue of its size alone, as two former cities combined in one, Berlin can be daunting to the first-time visitor. Fortunately, there are several solutions to help a client become oriented to the historic and scenic highlights in a short time. The Berlin Welcome Card, offered by the city’s tourism marketing arm of VisitBerlin, is a bargain whether for the independent traveler or the group traveler who has a couple of days for personal exploration.
Given the task of making sense of a city more than twice the size of the footprint of Paris, a recommended step is to hire a good city guide. Ours was Ulf Meyer, an independent guide and Berlin native employed by Culture Trip, a Berlin-based luxury travel guidance service headed by American Virginia Giordano. Culture Trip is a preferred partner of the travel agent networks Virtouso and Signature Travel Group in the U.S.
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| Some standard rooms at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Berlin, offer a view of the Aqua Dome. |
Among the highlights that Meyer’s three-hour tour provided was a visit to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, a sobering field of 1,722 unmarked, hollow, concrete blocks into which the visitor descends to experience a personal meditation on the World War II atrocities. We also saw the Reichstag; the I.M. Pei-designed new wing of the German History Museum; the Museum Island; and a commanding balcony view of the Brandenburg Gate from a nearby private artists’ club. One of the benefits of a Culture Trip Tour is not only saving time, but also gaining access to private venues that are otherwise unavailable.
Berlin is a music and dining city second to none. It has three grand opera houses, the Philharmonic Hall and a second Concert House (“Konzerthaus”) at the majestic Gendarmenmarkt where outdoor concerts are frequent in summer. There are cabaret and dramatic theaters including some that perform in English. We enjoyed a musical evening at a Berlin Residence Concert at the Charlottenburg Palace in western Berlin. Here the classical music of Handel, Vivaldi, Bach, and Mozart is performed by the Berlin Palace Orchestra, along with vocalists from Berlin’s opera companies, following a three-course candlelight dinner accompanied by excellent wines.
Another Berlin evening experience is the Gastro Rally, a progressive dinner visiting three restaurants for appetizer, main course and dessert and guided by local nightlife expert, bon vivant and food guide Henrik Tidefjard. Tidefjard offers at least five planned, escorted dinner evenings, each fitting the budget choices of his guests. Our evening included visits to trendy, artistic eateries that started with Pauly, which is set in a former Jewish Girls’ School filled with artifacts reflecting Berlin’s Jewish history.
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| With its share of new construction, Potsdamer Platz is emblematic of 21st century Berlin. |
A second stop was Bethanien, a restaurant housed in an artists’ collective that was a former hospital in the Kreuzberg section of Berlin, and dessert was at La Petite Felix, a bistro bar near the Brandenburg Gate with candid photos of famous rock stars and their bands. The presence of Henry the “Gastro Guide,” as with our city tour with Ulf Meyer, allowed Berlin novices the opportunity to discover the most popular city experiences. Henry brought us to unique settings for the enjoyment of fine foods and wines and VIP service we could never have found on our own.
Just off Alexanderplatz in the city center is the 427-room Radisson Blu Hotel. Opened in 2004, its contemporary design includes the world’s largest vertical Aqua Dome, which is an attraction on its own drawing visitors to the lobby to gape at the hundreds of tropical fish swimming in the giant cylindrical tube that ascends to the lobby tower. The guest rooms come with the requisite modern amenities, including free Wi-Fi, plus views of the Spree river, Cathedral Dome and nearby Museum Island, or interior views of the Aqua Dome. Agents can reach out to General Manager Ralph Goetzmann ([email protected], +011-49-30-238-280).
Air Berlin’s U.S. Focus
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| Berlin’s German History Museum was designed by I.M. Pei. |
The opening of the new Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt International Airport, known in the German capital by its IATA abbreviation as “the BER,” had been moved into 2014, with no date set as yet. On the positive side, it was the anticipation of the dramatically heightened profile that the new BER would provide for its growing trans-atlantic operations that prompted Air Berlin to work with VisitBerlin, the travel marketing arm of the German capital, and several of Berlin’s neighboring destinations. The collaboration looks to help educate the U.S. market on the travel discoveries that agents and their clients can look forward to.
One pioneering tourism promotion for the exciting new northeastern European regions is the Oder Partnership, a six-year-old cross-border partnership involving Berlin, the north German states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg and Saxony, and the Polish regions of West Pomerania, Lubusz Land, Greater Poland and Lower Silesia.
Air Berlin, the former LTU, has one of the youngest fleets in Europe with planes aver-aging five years of service. Our onboard experience was marked by friendliness, fast responsiveness to requests and remarkably tasty food.
Business class seats afforded an abundant array of in-flight entertainment, including classic James Bond films and a strong musical library, especially for classical and rock fans. Roomy seats, which reclined to full horizontal position, allowed for a satisfying overnight rest, and flight attendants remembered to ask everyone whether or not they want to be awakened for a light, but quite filling, breakfast.
The in-flight menu, with choices that included grilled duck sausage, red snapper or beef medallions, was the design of Chef Herbert Seckler of Restaurant Zanzibar, a culinary star on the German island of Sylt. The in-flight experience will inspire the Air Berlin passenger to want to one day visit that gourmet destination known in Berlin food circles as Germany’s “wooden shack” on the North Sea.