Sara and Rachel's Big Adventure

Adventure Delayed

2008-04-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

S and R's big adventure will likely be delayed until at least 2009 due to economic factors like the horrible US economy, the lack of vacation time, and stability of our own lives in the near term. Check back later.

watch the times

2008-03-31T18:47:00.000-07:00

As I was perusing airfare, I discovered rather cheap airfare ... 819.00.

But then I saw the times....leaving on 10/05, but not arriving until 10/07!

If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!

Also, I tried leaving from ORD (Chicago) instead of Madison; almost no difference in price.

I did search at nwa.com (I have frequent flyer miles with them) 862.00. 10/05-10/16

Continuing to look for hotels

2008-03-29T23:32:00.000-07:00

hotel.de is pretty nice.

Hotel Taunus in Berlin (Germany)
Monbijouplatz 1
10178 Berlin
49.90 euros/night
centrally located 7.2 ratings out of 10. (some of the reviews are actually in german, so I can't read them.)

Hotel Am Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin (Germany
Stresemannstraße 36
10963 Berlin
54.00 euros/night for single
60.00 euros/night for double
Centrally located, 7.4 out of 10.

I like those prices!

Trip and Hotel pricing

2008-03-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

10/07/08-10/17/08
MSN - TXL via Continental $848 (madison-cleveland-newark-berlin)
10/11/08-10/16/08
TXL - LHR via Lufthansa $137

Cheap Hotel Searching:

Berlin: 10/07/08-10/11/08 4 Nights:

Hotel Agon Frankfurter Allee, Berlin, Germany $133/night (farechase.com) 3 of 5 stars downtown central location is likely why it is more expensive.

Comfort Hotel Weissensee, $57.06/night (hotels.com) 3 of 5 stars Looks like it has a private bathroom. Can't tell about location. only 3 reviews all good. If we can figure out if it is near a train, it might be a good option.

Winter's Hotel Berlin City Messe, $64.77/night (hotels.com) 3 of 5 stars (shower on floor, NOT in room) Five minute walk to S and U trains, not centrally located.

Pension Berolina, $66.70 (hotels.com) 1 star. Centrally located. Shared bathroom. Review: "This hotel is actually a hostel. It is on the spartan side and a bit noisy in the mornings, but for a budget-conscious traveller in Berlin, it is an excellent pick -- clean, friendly,affordable given the local rates, and directly across the street from the Charlottenberg S-bahn station. Highly recommended -- we did a little looking around in person and couldn't find anything better in the 50-80 Euro range."

Hotel.de (think hotels.com, but for Germany) Searching Arendsee, near Ziemendorf for 10/09/08-10/10/08
Hotel Haus am See in Arendsee (Germany) $86.00/night
This is actually a spa! And they rent bikes so we could bike to Ziemendorf, which is a couple of miles away.

Ambiencehotel Zur Wolfsschlucht in Kläden (Germany) (45euros a night)
Actually these both sound pretty nice. This is farther away.

London: Cheap Hotels
THere are a number of cheap hotels listed in hotels.com, but I'm suspicious of some of them, as they have 1 star, and few reviews. They seem to have no bathroom in the room.

Carbigoe Hotel, London, $91/night. 1 bad review, but 4 neutral/good ones. Seems centrally located. ONly 1 star.

Royal Court Apartments 3 stars. $115/night. 100% good reviews. Centrally located.
I like this one a lot.

Wembley Plaza 4 stars. $121/night 75% good reviews.

And so forth.

I'm thinking we fly back to Germany the day before we leave and stay in a hotel that night near the airport so we can get to the airport easily.

Something like

Day 1-5 fly into Germany - fly to England
Day 5-10 Fly into England - Fly back to German
Day 11 Fly out of Germany, back to US

Hotels near airpots are generally much cheaper.

Booking a Multi-Part Ticket

2008-03-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

If you go to britishairways.com

and try to book a multi-part ticket.

choose some dates to go from ORD (Chicago)- TXL (Berlin), then TXL - LHR (london), then LHR - ORD.

I chose 10/2/08 - 10/9/08 BERLIN
then 10/9/08 - 10/16/08 LONDON
$1216

I talked to a friend of mine and she said that reason it is so expensive to get into London is because they add a lot of airport fees.

Here's some other choices.

10/7/08 - 10/12/08 BERLIN
10/12/08-10/16/08 LONDON
$1185

10/13/08-10/17/08 BERLIN
10/17/08-10/21/08 LONDON
$1155

But if you throw TXL - LHR into a Orbitz search, you get stuff like $227 (round) (10/23/08-10/28/08). So a US-BERLIN round trip would likely be cheaper, even with a side round trip to London than splitting....I think...

ACtually, just did another search on Farechase, and they are saying $138 roundtrip from Berlin-London for 5 days.

AirFare Check

2008-03-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

MSN - TXL (Berlin)

10/09/08-10/23/08

2 weeks: $818.00

09/30/08-10/09/08

10 days: $818.00

MSN - London (Heathrow)

09/30/08-10/09/08

10 days: 1057.00

10/09/08 - 10/23/08

10 days: 1091.00

If we leave from Chicago: 722.00 to Berlin (10/09-10/23)

Plannage

2008-03-10T09:21:00.001-07:00

Hi: I've been trying to figure out some stuff to do in Berlin; I'm a big shopper, you are a big shopper. We should definitely go shopping. Museums? Maybe, but I say we go to a few things, and spend the rest of the time shopping. I'm thinking

Checkpoint Charlie
The Berlin Wall
The really tall TV tower that you can go to and ride to the top
Couple Museums
Zoo?
Lots and lots of shopping.

What do you think of that?

Still about the same, but some new sites

2008-01-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

Check out booking buddy.com. You can see some other websites that I never saw before.

I just got an price of 800 bucks (give or take) from GRB to TXL. Nothing great yet. But it lets you search all kinds of sites. It was kind of neat. I am hoping to run across super cheap flights about $500 bucks or so.

I priced a flight from Berlin to London for 4 days, It was about $230 USD. It would be nice if we could find a flight to Berlin OR London and visit a few days in each. At least in London, I can find out if we could stay with Kate. That would save some $. It looks like the flying/ travel time can be about 14 hrs. So the extra couple of days might be nice.

It was a bit less expensive to fly to London from Green bay ($30), but it is an option.

??
I used the dates of October 11 to 21st.

October Flights are Now Searchable!

2007-12-10T10:17:00.000-08:00

Farechase says....

$787 Oct 1 - 10, 2008 from GBA to TXL (Wed - Fri) (9 days)

$747 Oct 2 - 14, 2008 from GBA to TXL (Thur - Tues) (12 days)

$798 Oct 6 - 16, 2008 from GBA to TXL (Mon - Thurs) (10 days)

You get the idea.

Just keep watching.

Day of the Week

2007-11-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

Using FareChase, I was doing searches on the day of the week to best travel.

Since September 2008 searches are now allowed, I did 09/08/08-09/22/08 = $769
(MSN - TXL) (That's a Monday departure, Monday Return)

Similar good days were Tuesday and Wednesday.

A 09/08-09/18 one costs $769 as well.

The price jumps (unsurprisingly) as we near the weekend. We hit Higher on Thursdays, The $800 mark on Friday, and weekends are near $1000.

Update and some good info.

2007-10-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

MILWAUKEE(MKE) TO BERLIN (TXL) $589
MSN TO TXL $668
GRB TO TXL $ 641

*based on dates of November of this year, due to no flights are out yet for October of next year, and prices for now are INSANE.

I have been reading a book on different customs in Germany. Very Interesting. It is called The German Way. I highly recommend it, I may re-read it as it gets closer. It is only 135 +/- pages, so it is a quick read.
There is also another one called When in Germany, Do as the Germans Do. I haven't started that yet.
I have been checking the weather right now in Germany...

BERLIN: High's in upper 50's; Low's in the lower 40's.
HAMBURG:High's in the mid to upper 50's ; Low's in the upper 30's.

Price Check

2007-09-21T13:09:00.001-07:00

MSN - TXL (Berlin) $808

GB - TXL (Berlin) $807

Now, this is for 10/4/07 to 10/14/07, so that's coming up pretty quickly and prices are going up. This was on Farechase.com

I think that when the October 2008 scheduling becomes available, we'll see a big drop. Right now, you can only order into July 2008.

August 2008 is the farthest out you can go and that is the height of the tourist season. That's $1278.

Price Check II

2007-09-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

Travelocity.

10/4/07-10/18/07 Thursdays.

Chicago-Berlin $769
GB-Berlin $726
Mad-Berlin $726

Chicago-Frankfurt $616
GB-Frankfurt $689
Mad-Frankfurt $689

Price Check

2007-08-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

I just checked the prices from Orbitz for a ticket in October, not 2008, but 2007. (you can't buy for October 2008 yet)

Just for comparison and an idea .... 10/4/07-10/18/07.

Here's what I got...

ORD (Chicago-O'Hare) - Berlin (TXL) = $628 (Brussels Airline)
ORD (Chicago-O'Hare) - Frankfurt (FRA) = $610 (Air India)
GBA (Green Bay) - Berlin (TXL) = $702 (Delta)
GBA (Green Bay) - Frankfurt(FRA) = $730 (Delta)
MSN (Madison) - Berlin (TXL) = $755 (Continental)
MSN (Madison) - Frankfurt (FRA) = $708 (Delta)

My idea is that by checking prices occasionally we might be able to better time the lowest price to buy. Of course, the market fluctuates, but we can also decide where and when to leave too.

I'm starting a spreadsheet.

Looks like a lovely place to visit....

2007-07-20T19:44:00.001-07:00

ZIEMENDORF (Altmarkkreis-Salzwedel) 02.11.1997

Oh, now... THIS is more like it!!

Cheap tickets!

2007-05-28T17:34:00.001-07:00

I ran across an ad for flight AND Hotel to France (somewhere) for less than 600 bucks!

If you see any deals like that let me know. We should make a mental note to watch for those when they appear next year. This is probably about the time that we could book our flight and hotel, if they are a good deal like those.

Of course, If we get a good deal like that we can still travel maybe over night but it would be nice to have a main location. After my last vacation to California, I hated living out of our rental car. We had a new hotel every night and I didn't like that. If we can get a travel pass like You mentioned before (Northwest world pass) we could hit some key sites or cities that we might want to visit.

I saw this a while ago...

2007-03-19T09:40:00.001-07:00

and meant to post about it...

The Northwest World Pass allows travel all over Europe for pretty cheap.

This is a map on the wall of ...

2007-01-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

a German professor's office. I just really like it....it's a topagraphical map of Germany if you are looking down on it from outer space.

Click for a more detailed view...kind of neat to look at and ponder...

Geneva Switzerland

2007-01-03T18:23:00.000-08:00

Population 178,000
Expensive, Of course this is probably the most famous of the cities for the League of Nations that started there at the Hotel De Ville. It is also known for 18th Century Mansions, Jean-Jaques Rouseau and Artwork by Picasso, Renoir, and Chagalle?

Trains: To Interlaken
cost: $ 50

Flights: to Paris

Bus- Day Pass: $6-15 and it Runs 5:30am to around Midnight. Probably the best way to get around during our visit. I didn't see anything about subways, but that might be to confusing.

Total visit Estimated cost: $200 (including hotel)

Interlaken population 60,000

2007-01-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

Interlaken is the top adventures destination. This sounds like a fun and beautiful town.
Some of the adventures include...

hiking
cost: Free
Biking
cost: $25
paragliding
cost: $123
river rafting
cost: $80-90
sky diving (NO WAY)
cost: $310
hang gliding
cost: $150
bungy jumping (NO THANKS)
cost: $102-135
Canyoning (sounds really cool) -
cost: $90-140
- it is the practice of rappeling down a series of gorge faces, jumping off cliffs into pools, and swinging like Tarzan from Ropes and zip cords through a canyon.

Train: to Geneva $ 50.00
to Luzern $ 25.00

Total cost: (Depends)

Lucerne Switzerland Population 60,000

2007-01-03T18:03:00.000-08:00

According to the book a 3 day visit recommends these 3 cities... Lucerne, Interlaken and Geneva.
I will spotlight some of the interesting things about each city.
Today is Lucerne.
It is renowned for its Sunrises, covered bridges, frescoed houses and Picasso Museum.
Trains: To Geneva (3.5 hrs)
Cost:$ 58.00 USD (70 SFr)

When I brought up the picture online, Reece thought it was really neat looking. It seems to be smaller than Appleton. (population wise)

Total Cost: $200.00 (including hotel)

Next Year

2007-01-03T03:40:00.000-08:00

We now can say that we are going to Europe NEXT YEAR! It may be almost 20 months away but it sounds SO Close!

Switzerland + Southern Germany

2006-12-15T15:49:00.000-08:00

I read some of the Switzerland section of "the book". It seemed expensive, but I think we are going to have to be prepared to spend a little money no matter what...when I was in Paris, I was kind of obsessive about money, and I shouldn't have been...I would have enjoyed myself a LOT more if I hadn't.

They don't use the Euro in Switzerland, but use instead the Swiss Franc. It's an odd thing that. But the scenery sounds nice.

Also, in south Germany is the castle created by Mad King Ludwig, the giant castle that Disney used as a model for the one at Disney World. Might be a fun thing to swing by.

Freeform European Vacation

2006-12-07T16:22:00.000-08:00

Something you said made a lot of sense to me.

If we just picked a location to start and end from, the rest of our vacation could be wide open. If we just found the best price from here to someplace in Europe, we could work out the details along the way.

It's kind of appealing, although getting a place to stay sometimes requires advanced reservations (but not all of the time).

Geneva

2006-12-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

I thought...well...if we start off in Switzerland, I should learn a bit about it.

They have free bicycle rentals for getting around in Geneva!

They also have daily planes to certain places; I'm not sure if Berlin is one of them. Geneva ->by plane or train -> Berlin/Ziemendorf -> by plane or train Nice/Monaco.

Geneva is one of the more expensive places though; maybe one or two days. They are on Lake Geneva...in early October it might be nice.

Also, Nice/Monaco? Right on the Meditterrean Sea. The guidebook has nice things to say about it.

Germany, France and Switzerland? Maybe.

2006-11-26T07:52:00.000-08:00

I was doing some checking online today.

Flights to Germany were about 700 on the average.
I was also on Easy Jet.com and checked for country to country flights for Europe. Ok, Granted these prices are for December but I couldn't ck for October.

Flying from
Hamburg Germany to Geneva was $40 -70.00 (depending on the day)

Geneva to Nice France... 60-140.00 depending on the day. Average temp is 68 in October!

Nice doesn't seem to fly to Hamburg. I would still like to see Ziemendorf, the main point ofthe trip. But the weather would be nice down by Nice. In Hamburg the weather in October is 55 degrees.
I need to tak a break I am going to overheat.
Too much brain activity.

Long Time No Post

2006-11-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

Nina is traveling again and it makes me long for our planning.

And my friend, Kathy, went to Prague and sent me pictures!

Let's discuss more!

Fly Passes

2006-09-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

I found this on CNN.com and thought it was a cool Idea. If we can find a extremely cheap tickets
to get there we could get some Fly Passes all around europe.
If gas prices continue to decline that may be good for us later. Providing world war and hurricanes are at a minimum...
: )

Hey Rache!

2006-09-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

What about this?

http://www.twobicycles.com

: )

Okay, okay....just dreaming.

The Trip

2006-08-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking that if we drop the "ziemendorf" town visit, we can concentrate our visit in lower southern Germany (near where Frankfurt is) and hit more of the places we want.

If we did that, we could do a Germany-Switzerland-Italy-France Loop.

This could work...

Extreme Tourists

2006-08-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

I just met the trialthlete with the amputated leg, she was amazing. She will be on the Amazing Race this fall. She is not allowed to talk about it much but she did say that she was not paid at all while they filmed. Bummer. She finished the Hawaiian Ironman in October of 2005. She actually is a slow runner! We did a fun run with her today... Anyway, she was saying how you can practically figure out who wins by reading blogs or things online and while I was cking it out I came accrossed this... pretty interesting.

Calendar

2006-07-31T19:39:00.000-07:00

Calendar
We could leave Monday October 6th 2008, Since that is right after Mom's Birthday. You could come up for her Birthday and we could leave the next day. I would be ok with staying til October 16 Thursday or 18 Saturday that would be 10-12 days.

I like the 'open jaw' idea. I tried it with Travelocity. Frankfurt is a great way to fly in or out of. I tried London as a fly into or out of after landing in Frankfurt and it was a pretty good deal at 774 (for this October, of course) Just for an idea of how much it would be.

I would love to see Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and France. They are fairly close to each other. But Would driving pay? I was on railpass.com and they had a very good price. If you ask it to help you find a pass. I don't know if I did it right but it asked for locations and days expected to be there. I wonder how much it will hold you to that peticular plan. It was neat to check out.

I don't have any points of interest to see. I would just love to experience each one of those. When I get a chance to research each one more I would be able to pick out better.
Ok, Holland would probably be neat to see.

Any thoughts?

Alternative Routes

2006-07-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

Okay...Berlin. A lot of planes go into Frankfurt, and that is in the lower southeast part of Germany, near to Switzerland. I think we can get cheap airfare into Frankfurt. Is there something else you've always wanted to see?

October. 2007? 2008? How many days?

Want to do a loop? There is something on the page you have referenced in the last post about an "open jaws" ticket, where you fly into one place and out of another. That sounded good to me.

I picked up a Holland tour book, but didn't have a lot of time to look at it. Eileen spent a year abroad in Holland, and she is enthusiastic about it. I love France, but I only know Paris, and very little else and my french is pretty mediocre but is probably enough to keep our butts out of trouble.

London might be nice; they speak English.

some neat sites!

2006-07-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

I found a blog that researches the book we have .
check it out!

It even has a website!

This was a really cool site with lots of tips for budget travel!

Thinking more about where to go

2006-07-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

I've paged through Amsterdam, and there is a lot about 1) the red light district, 2) Amsterdam's liberal drug policies.

Now, I realize that this book is aimed at student travelers, who might have more of an interest in those sorts of things, and I'm sure that there are a lot of other great things in Amsterdam that have nothing to do with drugs, so I'm a little concerned. Maybe I'll hang out at Barnes and Noble some day to see if I can find more to do in Amsterdam that isn't drug related.

Because, if there isn't much else to do, maybe we don't want to go there...

Car Tower

2006-07-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

This is a Car Tower that was recently in a 'daily photo' blog that I like to ck out.
I thought this was kind of cool.
Check it out!

What We Hope to See: Berlin

2006-07-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

Here is a starting thing that you should also post about. What we hope to see in a particular place. Basically, pick a place that we are likely to see. Go through the book and see if there is someplace described that you might want to see.

I paged through the Berlin section.

Bahnhof Zoo: A zoo and aquarium.
Reichstag: German Parliment building, famously burned down in 1933 as an excuse for Hitler to carry out his revenge on the Jews.
Museumsinsel and Alexanderplatz: A plaza with a lot of museums and a famous church damaged in bombings in 1944, but now restored.
Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedachniskirche: A bombed out church from WWII, left in natural state.
Schloss Charlottenburg: A palace.
Checkpoint Charlie: The checkpoint that once served as an entrance between East and West Berlin.
The Berlin Wall (the part that still stands) aka East Side Gallery
Shopping: The book doesn't have much about places to shop....
Food: The book has a lot of asian/veggie options. I like these to a point, but sometimes I crave real food. Page 419: Orchidee, sounds good, as does Bella Italia. German food? Die Feinback.
Page 430: Daytrips from Berlin: KZ Sachsenhausen. concentration camp.
Potsdam.

A fall in Germany?

2006-07-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

Hidy Ho Blogger!
I can't seem to remember if we decided a length of time.
I just realized the comment about the time of year, I would LOVE to do October. Not to mention some fall colors maybe!
Oktoberfest ends on October 1st, so anytime after that would be alot less busy. (and less expensive)

According to the book Oct 3rd is the Day of Unity, which is the national holiday the commemorates the day the Berlin wall fell down. ** which was not the exact day it fell, that was November 9th, but that was also the day that was the day the german republic was founded and the defeat of Hitlers first attempt to get control of Munich, but was considered an 'inappropriate day' for this celebration so they chose Oct. 3rd.

Oct 31 is Reformation Day. Is that anything like Halloween?
No. Interesting but no. Kind of Ironic.
That is only celebrated in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

October Temps Average 42 low-55 high
June temps average 52 low-71 high
Only hoildays in June are Fathers Day, Flag Day and First day of Summer. Just like American.

Did you know in the US October 6 th is German American day?
So October '08 sounds Great to me!

2006-07-07T17:41:00.000-07:00

This is a page describing a lake very close to Ziemendorf. Lake Arendsee.

Hotels in Stendal

Hotels in Arendsee.

Deutscheshaus-Arendsee

Hotels in Ludwigslust

Rail passes are expensive!

2006-07-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

How much would it cost to do this whole thing by rail, non-rail pass, just paying as we need to?

Hamburg > Berlin (book says 45-55 euros). What about Hamburg > Stendal

Berlin > Amsterdam (book says 126). Cheaper to fly that.

Berlin > Paris (bus is 59 euros) Just checking.

Hamburg > Stendal (round trip, not going onto Berlin) 72 euros - 91 euros.

Hamburg > Amsterdam (round trip 77 - 93 Euros).

Stendal > Berlin (round trip 17 - 27 Euros)

Fly into Where?

2006-07-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

According to the travel guide, Hamburg has trains that leave for Amsterdam 3 times a day for 75 euros.

There is a 4 day Eurorail ticket for German travel for 180 euros, but that's just within Germany. Might work with this schedule.

Page 50 of the book has information on cheap flights from major cities in Europe to other major cities. Especially nice? "KLM, cheap round trip tickets from London/Amsterdam to cities across Europe."

Fly into London. Get a cheap round trip ticket to Hamburg. (I just checked...63 euros.) Hamburg > Ziemendorf > Berlin (1 day in Hamburg, then train from Hamburg to maybe Stendal. Overnight in Stendal, leave next afternoon for Berlin, into berlin late. 2 days in Berlin. Depart on 3rd Day.

Berlin fly to Amsterdam (99 euros, for a round trip KLM), (84 euros one way SAS)

2 days in Amsterdam. (with a little padding, that's 9 days). Stop here. Back to Hamburg, back to London.

London 2 more days. (with a little padding, that's 12 days.)

Fly back to the USA.

I know there is no Paris there, but that is a pretty packed itiniary.

The Plan So Far...

2006-07-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, here's the inspiration for the trip. Ziemendorf, Germany.

Ziemendorf itself is very small. Surrounding towns go by the names of

Lüchow, Salzwedel, Wittenberge, Dannenberg, Stendal, Dömitz, Ludwigslust

So a good place to concentrate on is what is in the surrounding towns, hotels, restaurants, etc.

Also, the village itself is halfway between Berlin and Hamburg.

According to that map that I bought, there is a train stop in Stendal and Ludwigslust.

And here is a really big version of the same map.

Welcome to Sara and Rachel's Big Adventure!

2006-07-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

This is a blog that Sara and Rachel can use to post ideas about their big European trip!