Berlin in 48 hours

We arrived at Berlin main train station just after 1 PM and I was surprised how huge the glass structure seemed to be. You can check out my Frankfurt to Berlin post here . We came to the hotel at about 3 PM . The location of our hotel was great – located in the Mitte area, only few blocks away from the Alexander Platz  and right next to a U-bahn station (the subway) so only  few subway stops away from all the main tourist attractions.  

Berlin is a big city and it is of course great to walk around the entire city looking at famous monuments, museums, gardens, etc. But eventually you’ll get worn out from all the walking and then you need a good and fast way to get around. It seems like the public transportation is quite excellent in Berlin. The U-Bahn covers most of the city with frequent stops around town.

We were in Berlin just for the weekend, so the typical touristy stuff  we covered are the main historical sights in Mitte (the old centre of town in former East Berlin covering the area between Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz ),  Brandenburg Gate, the street of Unter den Linden, the Reichstag, Berlin Wall, Holocaust Memorial, Museum Island, Checkpoint Charlie and enough time to walk around the Potsdamer Platz, Tiergarten and former West Berlin.

We took a walk along Unter den Linden towards the Brandenburg gate (Brandenburger Tor). Brandenburg gate is one most recognized places of Germany, hence lots of tourist here. Still an impressive site. 

Alexanderplatz is not a particularly nice area of Berlin, has a  large shopping area. Kind of grim, concretey and unattractive. The TV tower- Fernsehturm is imposing.

Reichstag, or the German parliament is an impressive building with beautiful views. We couldn't go up the wonderful glass dome, apparently you have to book in advance to go up in the dome. The line outside was close to the longest line that I have ever seen. So we settled for the view of the building 

Checkpoint Charlie is located on Friedrichstrasse which is full of shops,cafes and restaurants with lot of people and nice atmosphere.  At Checkpoint Charlie today you can find a replica of the sign and watch booth that was once there but there is not that much else to remind you of the history that the place holds. It  is very tourist centered with funny costumed "soldiers" to take pictures with, but this is it. 

Museum Island is a small island that contains the Berliner Dom, Pergamonmuseum  and a few other museums and hence the name museuminsel (museum island). The Berliner Dom church was partially destroyed during World War 2 but it has been restored in a "simplified" form. The church looked really impressive on the outside, but we decided not to  check out the inside

The Paragmonmuseum is not as extensive as museums like Louvre and the Vatican museum, so I wasn't expecting to spend too many hours inside, however the entrance had a long line, something like 45-60 minutes to get in, so decided to skip it.

Berliner Dom

Potsdamer Platz

Berlin is a huge city and well worth a visit. Lots of great restaurants to check out and lots of attractions to visit. We were not able to cover all the places that we wanted to. So the next time I go there I would like more time so I can visit some of the places that I missed.

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Frankfurt to Berlin on ICE, the german high speed train

I was in Frankfurt last month to attend a conference, since my wife had also tagged along with me, we decided to spend the weekend in Berlin. There were couple of things I was looking forward to my journey to Berlin;

1. Ride on the ICE train.
2. The new Berlin Hauptbahnof.

DB's Inter City Express or "ICE " high speed trains are among the best-known brands of Germany, that said, I decided to take the train to Berlin instead of flying. My only other experience on a high speed train was on Thallys from Paris to Brussels. We booked the tickets online two weeks in advance and were lucky enough to get the reduced price fare. I was hoping that I could get on the third generation ICE3 train which supposedly goes over a speed of 300km/hr (It takes less than an hour to travel a distance of 140miles from frankfurt to Cologne on ICE3) , but it turned out that Frankfurt-Berlin was operated by ICE2 trains which is slightly slower than ICE3, but ofcourse still way faster than the Amtraks we are used to.

We arrived at the Frankfurt Haupbahnof 30 mins before our scheduled departure. Since we had already reserved our seats, we knew which car to board and finding our seats was very painless. They even had our names printed above our seats. The train itself was very nice compared to Thallys. The seats were large with lots of legroom and looked like the business class seats of a transatlantic flight. The coolest part was the electronic tableau over the sliding glass doors which shows the actual speed of the train. When I looked at it on the way to the restroom it was showing 240 km/h. That’s probably the fastest speed I’ve ever traveled at, without leaving the ground.

The German country side had some breathtaking views. The train makes few stops on the way to Berlin including Wolfsburg. For all the VW fans outhere, the Wolfsburg station is right next to the Volkswagon factory and you can pretty much see the the entire factory, customer delivery center & VW museum buildings from the train.

It took slightly less than 4 hours to reach Berlin, we got off at the new spanking Berlin central station or the Hauptbahnhof. The entire building is made of glass, its huge and amazing to look at, it looked so delicate that I felt that the entire building could come crashing down if the glass shatters. If you ever get off at Berlin Hauptbanhof walk towards the center of the building and you could see trains moving in all three levels.It's a remarkable piece of design and engineering. It's also one of the biggest shopping centers in Berlin and pretty cool out there.

ICE Train

One of the three levels 

Main Entrance

In my opinion ICE trains are definitely much better than Thallys and I believe Thallys and French TGV operate similiar trains. Hopefully I can take the eurostar later this year and decide for myself which is the best train in Europe. My only advice if your are planning on taking ICE is to reserve your seats in advance.

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24 hours in Frankfurt

Most of the people coming to Frankfurt, are on their way to going somewhere else, which is to say that they are changing flights at the mammoth Frankfurt International Airport. But if you are at the Frankfurt airport and NOT a transit passengers, then fear not: Frankfurt is the financial capital of Europe, and public transportation from the airport into town is as good as anywhere in the world. Its about 20 min train ride (S-Bahn) to the city centre.

Compared to other european cities Frankfurt has a modern skyline. It is served with a mixture of subway lines & Trams, but walking is not at all a bad option. The city’s core, emanating from the city hall plaza known as the Römerberg is compact, with enough shopping to keep you busy. 

Romerberg

The Zeil – stretching between Konstablerwache and Hauptwache has the mainstream shopping. Head for the adjacent Goethestrasse if you fancy high-end and designer stuff.Walking along the paths on both sides of the river 'Main' is a nice experience. Most of the museums and galleries are flocked along the river and admissions to these are free.

Frankfurt is a cosmopolitan city and there are no scarcity of restaurants. It appeared to me that most Frankfurters eat everything but German when they go out. You can find all kinds of restaurants catering various budgets

European Central Bank

Lastly, Frankfurt is the home of the European Central Bank , which sets monetary policy for the Eurozone economy. So checkout the Euro Tower before leaving Frankfurt ,you can’t miss the big euro symbol with 12 stars .

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Hong Kong in 48 hours

On our way back from Thailand, we had a nice 2-day layover in Hong Kong and were able to go into Kowloon, HongKong Island, go to Victoria’s Peak, ride the Star Ferry, and all great things. 

We landed at the Hong Kong International airport which is built on an island by land reclamation. For the "Extreme Engineering" fans, Hong Kong Airport itself can be an attraction. The huge terminal is an impressive sight. Despite being one of the largest and busiest airport, it was pretty painless to navigate through the terminal building and pass through immigration, baggage claim and customs.

We took the airport express train which zips you from the airport to Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. The station and the ticket counter is inside the airport itself and arguably the most efficient and cost effective way to reach Kowloon or Hong Kong island. From the station there are free shuttles that will take you to all major hotels.




Hong Kong has many sights to see. Since we had less than two days there, we narrowed it down to seeing Victoria Peak and the Victoria Harbor which are must sees. Victoria Peak offers some fabulous views of the Harbor and Kowloon. The Peak Tram takes you to the top of the peak. However be prepared to wait in the long line to board the tram. We went on a weekday but still had to wait over 30 mins to get on it. The ride on tram itself gives you some spectacular view of city skyline. There are many restaurants, shopping and walking trails at the top. We ended up having lunch at one of the tourist trap restaurant and spent couple of hours walking around.The tram on the way back was empty so we could move on either sides of it to checkout the views.

View from Victoria Peak;

We spent rest of the day in and around Hong Kong central, which is where all the banks and other big businesses are. It is also home for the most expensive hotels, restaurants and designer stores. We walked around the the central district admiring the tall buildings. Most of the streets were very crowded especially the streets around Time Square and SoHo. We also took the pedestrian escalator which is the world’s longest escalator system that connects downtown financial district to the mid-levels neighborhood of condominium towers.In the evening we did the Harbour cruise on the Star Ferry. There are plenty of other cruise operators that you can choose from if you like the usual luxury amenities, but Star Ferry is very popular and is one of the icons of Hong Kong. It carries passengers across Victoria Harbor between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island and offers magnificient views of the harbor and city skyline. We got off at Kowloon and walked past the famous Peninsula Hotel. And yeah I was not aware of the world famous restroom on top of the hotel. Apparently the main attraction of the Peninsula Hotel are the restrooms on the top where the urinals line a floor-to-ceiling glass wall viewing the harbour and Hong Kong Island. who knew!

The next day we took a cab to the airport express train station. I was pleasantly suprised that the train station turned out to be just like an airport, it had check-in counters of all major airlines.You basically check-in your bags and collect your boarding passes right there. All we had to do after that is to board the train to the airport. At the airport we directly went through the security and almost had 3 hours until boarding.The Hong Kong airport facilities are amazing with over 40 restaurants,160 retail outlets and free wi-fi. We spent lot of time walking around the shopping area and for awhile I forgot that I was in an airport, it was like wandering in a shopping Mall. And what can I say, there was a "Popeyes" right there, there are hardly any in San Francisco bay area, so I just could not miss the oppurtunity to grab some chicken before heading towards our gate. -

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Day trip to Phi Phi Islands, Thailand

Next day we decided to take a day trip to Phi Phi Island. We were so surprised that actually this hopping island tour from Phuket came with many different kind of packages and varying prices as well. We booked the most economical version of the day trip to Phi Phi Islands via ferry at our hotel. As usual, the package we bought included shuttle transfer from hotel to the pier.  We were ready for the pick-up at 7am. A shuttle van picked us at our hotel on time and there was a fair bit of waiting around for other travelers at other hotels, then it took about  an hour to get to the pier in Phuket.

The ferry to Phi Phi departs at 8:30 am from the pier. The pier was a bit crowded with both tourists as well as locals.I  think there are only 2-3 boats leaving to phi phi every mornings.The ferry goes across Andaman sea to Phi Phi Islands in about 2 hours.   Phi Phi Islands, where they filmed the movie "The Beach" is situated between the large Island of Phuket and the Andaman Sea. 

The island is so small there are no cars, but plenty of young tourists all around.  It's really crowded by the ferry dock and the main street.Getting from the boat to the main street,you have to pass about 20 touts for tours, boat hire, etc. The main street opens out a bit after a hundred meters, and you have a clear view of the Maya bay & beach. Maya Beach is known to be one of the world's most beautiful beaches. I am not really a beach person but It is really a tropical paradise with beautiful strip beach between two limestone cliff islands and has all the hotels, beach bars, restaurants, diving and climbing shops. No wonder its so popular among the adventurous backpackers from all over the world. We had a great time hanging out at the beach and exploring the island. But the heat was still bothering me. Just wished we had an extra day here so that we could enjoy the island in the evening when its much cooler. God, it was so hot that I thought I might fry, no kidding.

Maya Bay @ Phi Phi Islands

Some parts of the Island are just breathtaking, whereas some parts aren't so. The islands are gorgeous with clean beach and breathtaking back-drop, but that's the perception from the boat. Once you get on the islands, then you find all the things you are trying to evade by taking a vacation, meaning noisy crowds, overcrowded restaurants, leaving on a schedule, no relaxation, etc. Still a trip to Phuket is not complete without visiting phi-phi island. So even a cramped day great day trip to the island is worth it with plenty of  adventure. If I go again, I would probably prefer staying on Phi Phi island for a few nights, rather than doing a cruise from Phuket. 

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