Hello friends. After our day in Copenhagen, Germany, we set off for Germany. We took the fastest route possible, which included a 2 hour ferry ride across the Baltic Sea. We got off to a rough start that morning when our alarm didn’t go off at 5:30. Getting up at 6:30 gave us very little time to get ready and packed, but by 7:40 we were check out of the Crowne Plaza and ready for the airport shuttle.
At the airport, we found the Hertz counter to pick up our car that we would drive around Germany, Austria and back to Denmark for the next 2 weeks. I had prearranged with Hertz to order a very specific car so that we made sure to get an automatic transmission with a large enough trunk for four people's worth of luggage. Even with the Volvo wagon that we got, the folks in the back seat had to deal with a bag between them the entire time. Big tip - pack light! When you travel with more than 2 people, renting a car and splitting the cost is definitely the way to go instead of trains and public transportation the entire time. We paid $1,222 for our car for 2 weeks. That's $611/couple which I thought was a good deal. The snafu that we ran into happened in the Copenhagen airport. We arrived at the hertz counter a little before our scheduled pick up time. The car was already available but they wanted to charge us a fee for picking it up early. After double checking our receipt and noticing what happened, we assured them that we would return it early, and they agreed to lower the price back down. It helped that we had all of our confirmation paperwork printed and available to show them which made it difficult for them to refute the reservation price.
From Copenhagen, we set out for the town of Gedser, Denmark which took us about 1:45 drive. From there we stopped at the ferry entrance and waited for the green light to drive our car onto the ferry. We took the Scandlines ferry across the sea. The other couple arranged the ferry so I don't recall the exact price, but looking at the website now, prices range from 40 Euros and up. I do know that we paid extra for priority boarding because we were bringing a vehicle with us. I can't say whether or not this was necessary, but if definitely made us feel better knowing that we were in a different lane than other cars and that we got on the ferry (and off the ferry) first.
As soon as we got on the ferry, we parked underneath the ship and then headed to the top. The ferry itself was lovely and we really enjoyed the short time we spent aboard. It was only a 2 hour ride, and inside they had a luncheon buffet and duty free shopping. I love Toblerone. :)
At the buffet we experienced our first encounter with chip and pin credit cards. These are starting to pop up all over Europe, and the machines are not compatible with American credit cards. We are slowly getting more and more cards with chips in them, but they are still not the same as the chip and PIN cards that they have over seas. My in-laws traveling with us even got a specific card with a chip in it, but the pin still didn't work. In nearly all cases where we had an issue (and could communicate with the sales clerk) we had to tell them that we had no pin. Once they realized we were foreign or had no pin, they were able to run the card a different way and it would work. And if worst comes to worst, always make sure you have enough cash on you to cover things like meals or other small incidentals.
Before reaching the other side, they made a few announcements about going back to our cars, but they were either in Danish or German. We kept an eye on our watches, but made it back to our car just in the nick of time before the doors opened for us to drive off. You could say the timing was perfect, but we cut it a little too close for my timidity.
Our first mission in Germany was a quest to find the Green Emission sticker for driving in city centers. I don't know how on earth we came across this, but at some point during my research, I found out that German cars are required to have a special clean emission sticker in order to drive downtown in certain cities. Since our Berlin hotel was smack in the middle of the city, we knew this was something we'd have to worry about. If we had rented a car in Germany itself, the car would have already come with the appropriate stickers, but since we rented our car in Denmark, it only had the necessary Danish stickers. We weighed the likelihood of getting a ticket vs. the cost, time and stress of taking a rental car to a car shop in Germany. The cost of the sticker was only 6.55 euros vs. a violation ticket of 40 euros (and they required stickers in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Nuremberg and Freiburg, all of which we were visiting) so we decided to figure out where we needed to stop and get one. Of course that wasn't terrible easy either, but we eventually found a place within a pretty close distance to where our ferry dropped us (in Rostock, Germany). Of course, being this far outside any major city, we couldn't find anyone who spoke English to tell them what we needed. Fortunately, my father-in-law paid for an international data plan on his iPad and had a translator app. As soon as he typed in green sticker, the gentleman at the ATU station knew what we wanted. We gave him our rental paperwork and the documents in the glove compartment, paid our 6.55E, got our sticker and were on our way.
After another 2 hours we drove to the center of Berlin to the Radisson Blu Hotel. We parked underground and checked in. You can read my trip advisor review on the hotel, but in short, it was pretty great. We chose it for the location. We only planned on spending a single day in Berlin, so having a hotel with easy access to attractions and public transportation trumped everything else. My husband and I opted for the non-refundable, prepaid price of $157/night for 2 nights while my in-laws booked a refundable fare which was slightly more expensive. Our rooms were identical, so depending on what type of traveler you are, either option is doable at this hotel.
We didn't waste anytime. We arrived in Berlin in the middle of the afternoon, dropped our bags in our rooms, and immediately set out on foot for the Berlin Cathedral (right next door to the hotel). Allied bombing nearly destroyed the Berlin Cathedral during World War II (and nearly all of Berlin/Germany for that matter), but as you walk up the staircase toward the dome, you can read all about the renovation project that took place after the war. They also had pre and post war pictures which I found especially fascinating.
From the cathedral, we walked to the main train station, Alexanderplatz. We fought with the ticket dispensers for about an hour. This was a rather unfortunate waste of time, but the youtube videos we watched prior to arriving didn't help us at this particular moment. We eventually realized that the machine we stood at was a change only machine. My father-in-law went to one of the convenience stores (think 7-11) and got enough change to buy tickets. It was then that we learned that the U-Bahn is on the honor system. The idea is that they randomly check passengers for tickets but you don't technically need a ticket to enter/exit the metro like you do in the United States, Tokyo, Bangkok, etc. I don't recall now if they ever checked ours, but we always made sure we had them.
We headed from Alexanderplatz to Bernauer Strasse and then still had to walk quite a ways to reach the Berlin Wall Memorial and Documentation Center. We got to the Documentation Center with only a short amount of time to see it before they closed. We then spent some time walking around the remnants of the wall itself outside. I thought this was a very moving experience and highly recommend it. It's a piece of history that happened during our own lifetime and made such a huge impact on the people living in Berlin at the time.
At the airport, we found the Hertz counter to pick up our car that we would drive around Germany, Austria and back to Denmark for the next 2 weeks. I had prearranged with Hertz to order a very specific car so that we made sure to get an automatic transmission with a large enough trunk for four people's worth of luggage. Even with the Volvo wagon that we got, the folks in the back seat had to deal with a bag between them the entire time. Big tip - pack light! When you travel with more than 2 people, renting a car and splitting the cost is definitely the way to go instead of trains and public transportation the entire time. We paid $1,222 for our car for 2 weeks. That's $611/couple which I thought was a good deal. The snafu that we ran into happened in the Copenhagen airport. We arrived at the hertz counter a little before our scheduled pick up time. The car was already available but they wanted to charge us a fee for picking it up early. After double checking our receipt and noticing what happened, we assured them that we would return it early, and they agreed to lower the price back down. It helped that we had all of our confirmation paperwork printed and available to show them which made it difficult for them to refute the reservation price.
From Copenhagen, we set out for the town of Gedser, Denmark which took us about 1:45 drive. From there we stopped at the ferry entrance and waited for the green light to drive our car onto the ferry. We took the Scandlines ferry across the sea. The other couple arranged the ferry so I don't recall the exact price, but looking at the website now, prices range from 40 Euros and up. I do know that we paid extra for priority boarding because we were bringing a vehicle with us. I can't say whether or not this was necessary, but if definitely made us feel better knowing that we were in a different lane than other cars and that we got on the ferry (and off the ferry) first.
As soon as we got on the ferry, we parked underneath the ship and then headed to the top. The ferry itself was lovely and we really enjoyed the short time we spent aboard. It was only a 2 hour ride, and inside they had a luncheon buffet and duty free shopping. I love Toblerone. :)
At the buffet we experienced our first encounter with chip and pin credit cards. These are starting to pop up all over Europe, and the machines are not compatible with American credit cards. We are slowly getting more and more cards with chips in them, but they are still not the same as the chip and PIN cards that they have over seas. My in-laws traveling with us even got a specific card with a chip in it, but the pin still didn't work. In nearly all cases where we had an issue (and could communicate with the sales clerk) we had to tell them that we had no pin. Once they realized we were foreign or had no pin, they were able to run the card a different way and it would work. And if worst comes to worst, always make sure you have enough cash on you to cover things like meals or other small incidentals.
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| Duty free findings on our ferry from Denmark to Germany |
Our first mission in Germany was a quest to find the Green Emission sticker for driving in city centers. I don't know how on earth we came across this, but at some point during my research, I found out that German cars are required to have a special clean emission sticker in order to drive downtown in certain cities. Since our Berlin hotel was smack in the middle of the city, we knew this was something we'd have to worry about. If we had rented a car in Germany itself, the car would have already come with the appropriate stickers, but since we rented our car in Denmark, it only had the necessary Danish stickers. We weighed the likelihood of getting a ticket vs. the cost, time and stress of taking a rental car to a car shop in Germany. The cost of the sticker was only 6.55 euros vs. a violation ticket of 40 euros (and they required stickers in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Nuremberg and Freiburg, all of which we were visiting) so we decided to figure out where we needed to stop and get one. Of course that wasn't terrible easy either, but we eventually found a place within a pretty close distance to where our ferry dropped us (in Rostock, Germany). Of course, being this far outside any major city, we couldn't find anyone who spoke English to tell them what we needed. Fortunately, my father-in-law paid for an international data plan on his iPad and had a translator app. As soon as he typed in green sticker, the gentleman at the ATU station knew what we wanted. We gave him our rental paperwork and the documents in the glove compartment, paid our 6.55E, got our sticker and were on our way.
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| ATU Station in Rostock, Germany |
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| Green Emission Sticker for city driving in Germany |
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| Giant fish tank inside the Radisson Blu Hotel - Berlin |
We didn't waste anytime. We arrived in Berlin in the middle of the afternoon, dropped our bags in our rooms, and immediately set out on foot for the Berlin Cathedral (right next door to the hotel). Allied bombing nearly destroyed the Berlin Cathedral during World War II (and nearly all of Berlin/Germany for that matter), but as you walk up the staircase toward the dome, you can read all about the renovation project that took place after the war. They also had pre and post war pictures which I found especially fascinating.
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| Pipe organ inside the Berlin Cathedral |
We headed from Alexanderplatz to Bernauer Strasse and then still had to walk quite a ways to reach the Berlin Wall Memorial and Documentation Center. We got to the Documentation Center with only a short amount of time to see it before they closed. We then spent some time walking around the remnants of the wall itself outside. I thought this was a very moving experience and highly recommend it. It's a piece of history that happened during our own lifetime and made such a huge impact on the people living in Berlin at the time.
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| Berlin Wall Memorial - Berlin, Germany |
After visiting the Berlin Wall Memorial, we took the train back to Alexanderplatz, got a traditional German dinner, bought some pastries at a bakery for breakfast the next morning (breakfast at the hotel cost something ridiculous) and called it a day.
Click HERE for Berlin Part II which includes many more great tourist attractions and my own perspective on Berlin as a modern European city.
Thanks for reading!
- Foxy the Traveler
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