this is the voice of re:mote induction.Tuesday, October 14, 2003
BERLIN
travelling - to get to berlin we flew to stansted and from there to schönefeld. with hindsight it did appear that we could have got cheaper flights and taken a different route, but we got there and that is the main thing. schönefeld in located in the south east of the city, with regular trains from the train station which is located with in walking distance from the airport - though a free bus does run from the front of the airport to the station, which is clearly marked as the airport express. there are a number of s-bahn trains which run into berlin, which can take time, the better options are to wait for the regional expresses - which are much quicker than the "regular" trains. RE4 and RE5 are both suitable options.
in general it is good to know that many stations have ticket machines on the platforms, these take cash and credit card. though sometimes we found that we had to find another platform than the one we were travelling from to get these machines. as well as the ticket machines there are secondary machines, which you should punch your ticket in - these date stamp the tickets and make them valid. if you are caught with an unvalidated ticket fines can be applied for 40euros.
for the bulk of our trip we found the 7 day ticket useful. this covered us for travelling throughout zones A and B, which is central berlin. including the comprehensive network of s-bahn (surface trains) and u-bahn (underground trains) as well as the trams and buses. making it pretty easy to get about, especially when most guide books seems to include an travel map for the city.
accommodation - we seemed to have mistimed our trip a little. the plan fell into place a little last minute style. so we didn't really take into account that our trip would take in a holiday weekend - october the 3rd being the day that germany was reunified. as a result we were finding it quite difficult to find anywhere that wasn't booked for that weekend or hideously expensive. the result was that the hotel we got was a little out of the way. by coincidence rather than planning, the hotel we got was within walking distance of schönefeld airport, which meant we were at least sorted from that point of view. pretty much each day we got up and headed into the city, had breakfast once we got there, did what we were doing that day, then headed back to the hotel at the end of the day. being that close to an airport i did have concerns that i wouldn't be able to sleep for the sound of planes. which is ironic given that i wasn't able to sleep for the sound of trains!
travelling - to get to berlin we flew to stansted and from there to schönefeld. with hindsight it did appear that we could have got cheaper flights and taken a different route, but we got there and that is the main thing. schönefeld in located in the south east of the city, with regular trains from the train station which is located with in walking distance from the airport - though a free bus does run from the front of the airport to the station, which is clearly marked as the airport express. there are a number of s-bahn trains which run into berlin, which can take time, the better options are to wait for the regional expresses - which are much quicker than the "regular" trains. RE4 and RE5 are both suitable options.
in general it is good to know that many stations have ticket machines on the platforms, these take cash and credit card. though sometimes we found that we had to find another platform than the one we were travelling from to get these machines. as well as the ticket machines there are secondary machines, which you should punch your ticket in - these date stamp the tickets and make them valid. if you are caught with an unvalidated ticket fines can be applied for 40euros.
for the bulk of our trip we found the 7 day ticket useful. this covered us for travelling throughout zones A and B, which is central berlin. including the comprehensive network of s-bahn (surface trains) and u-bahn (underground trains) as well as the trams and buses. making it pretty easy to get about, especially when most guide books seems to include an travel map for the city.
accommodation - we seemed to have mistimed our trip a little. the plan fell into place a little last minute style. so we didn't really take into account that our trip would take in a holiday weekend - october the 3rd being the day that germany was reunified. as a result we were finding it quite difficult to find anywhere that wasn't booked for that weekend or hideously expensive. the result was that the hotel we got was a little out of the way. by coincidence rather than planning, the hotel we got was within walking distance of schönefeld airport, which meant we were at least sorted from that point of view. pretty much each day we got up and headed into the city, had breakfast once we got there, did what we were doing that day, then headed back to the hotel at the end of the day. being that close to an airport i did have concerns that i wouldn't be able to sleep for the sound of planes. which is ironic given that i wasn't able to sleep for the sound of trains!
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