IDK where Erica1 resides, but if she’s on the east coast there are direct flights from EWR to Berlin.
It sounded like she was planning on being in Italy first, though.
If I have to pick one airport in the US I hate most it is EWR (bad trips through it) and it also requires you to pick an US airline which we have given up on trips to Europe (price, service and luggage issues)
We’ve been flying United for at least the last 10 years. EWR’s a United hub, and they’re connected to LH. Don’t see many price differences between the two.
Most hated airport for me? PHL. Have successfully avoided flying out of or connecting through it for more than a decade.
ETA: Doesn’t hurt to have Global Entry, either 
For airline prices you have to visit the airline pages daily a few times for several weeks as their specials are often very short but you can pick up quite good savings including significant business class price dips.
Yeah, we usually start looking once we’ve nailed down a place to stay, which is late Feb/March.
Can’t say that we’ve seen any real steals since the pandemic, tho. Average ticket prices for PremierPlus were around 2K this summer. Bidned class is out of our league, but PP is BC light.
You can get business class with Lufthansa and BA for $2400-$2600 if you are a bit flexible with the days and visit their pages very often.
That’s $400-600 too much for us each 
*Altho my PIC just reminded me for $150 more we coulda gotten BC, and I said it wasn’t worth it 
Vielleicht im nächsten Sommer…
Bro, you should have splurged!! 
Hindsight’s 20/20 
Are there actual beds in BC on United or LH?
Any BC worth its salt should have lie flat seats, but I’m not sure about United 
1 Like
Next time you should definitely do it - premium economy and business class are totally different. PE is more a glorified EC whereas on BC you can actually sleep etc which makes a much better start to any vacation in Europe.
And yes, there are beds at BA and Lufthansa- not sure about United (but one shouldn’t book US lines anyway, crappy service etc)
That has not been my experience at all. I find LH and United pretty interchangeable.
Just the last trip with United this year within the US (unfortunately company policy) was enough to remind why we hate them so much.
Re transpertation, we usually, almost always fly Emirates to Italy - great planes, pricing and service (Milan only). Between Italy and Germany or within Italy? Ryanair most likely they have tons of flights - they worked for us well this summer getting up to Berlin from Bergamo then back to Malpensa for our return, also travelling to and from Catania to Rome the year before Very cheap. The only disadvantage was that we had to reclaim our bags and recheck for the transatlantic fight - Ryanair is not in an alliance… Lufthansa paired with its sub Air Dolomiti is anothr possibility - we used them last summer when we used Munich as our gateway, traveled down to the Dolomites and Garda, by train and bus and then returned to Munich via Air Dolomiti at Milan linate. . Re destinations, I think both Garda and Dolomites could be problematic if you or your partner have mobility issues - where we stay in Gardone is on a steep hillside. Too bad we do not have the benefit of Allende’s reports on the Dolomites any more . I think a car would be desirable but we did not have one so not sure how that would have improved matters.
this is probably a gross generalization but since the german airines (and their US alliance partners) tend to work through hubs, it might take a good bit longer to get between italy and your final destination city (if not, say. Frankfurt) in Germany using them than using the budget airlines - at least thats what we found. That and cost is probably why we saw scads of ryanair planes at the Berlin airport, many fewer german carriers. Ithink they are losing out big time competitively to the more flexible discounters
Ok kicking off my report on our eating for our 6.5 day visit to Berlin. We could generally only handle one resto meal per day - so mainly we ate bread, cheese and fruit (including plums picked in our garden) in our pleasant, quiet airbnb in Charlottenberg for dinner and never got to explore the string of lauded asian restos father along our street, Kantstrasse 
On the bright side, some of the bread and cheese was excellent!
We met up with daughter and son in law a few times who were also in Berlin for an academic conference at the Frei university - they mainly drove the eating agenda at our meetings. They chose our first resto, LOKAL https://www.lokal-berlinmitte.de/, in Mitte, expressly farm to table cooking, as a follow up to a visit to the Alte Nationalgalerie to see an exhibition of what turned out to be very interesting Carl Friedrich Caspar paintings. With amusing servers and an interesting winelist (son in law chose one of three orange wines on offer, a Slovenian item) this meal was quite enjoyable but a mixed bag. Unfortunately I did not taste or photograh everything we ate - the solid cuisine featuring a limited menu of traditional mains, appetizers and desserts along with some interesting small plate offerings was characterized by garnishes and inclusions of seasonal vegetables, fruits and some dairy and grain products. I was not totally convinced that all lthese unconventional juxtapositions (i.e. strawberries with vegetables or blackcurrents and maybe quark with my very good steak) really added to the dishes but we ended up having a very good meal, ending with a fine cheesecake with dark fruit. Here is the steak with its berry garnish.
My daughter’s stuffed tomato with oatmeal filling sauteed hazelnuts and other things, which she loved
and my beef tartare on a pea puree with walnuts, herbs and other varied garnishes
5 Likes
Day 2 (Sunday) we met again with daughter and SIL for an early lunch at DAS XANTENER ECK, a traditional resto and beer house just south of Adenauerplatz. We really liked our meal - the fresh herrings were in and I had the matjes “housewife style”, with sour cream, apples, onions and potato, perfect -
daughter ordered maultaschen ( a local dumpling pasta with a solid well seasoned veg filling) which was served witth fried onions and a mushroom cream sauce - also very good
- Husband and son-in law both ordered from the pfefferlinge menu, the generously sized flammkuchen, really enough for two
and a pork schitzel with cream sauce - the mushroooms included in these dishes were high quality, and these dishes were also much enjoyed. They have a pleasant outdoor area as well as a large traditional interior and I would recommend this place for a very well priced traditional german meal. we followed up with a visit to the Gemaldegalie to see the current wonderful Hals exhibition and a long walk through the beautiful and uncrowded Grosser Tiergarten before resting our tired feet at home.
6 Likes
Day 3 - On Monday, a day with a lot of museum closures, we decided to go over and see Checkpoint Charlie and some of the wall related exhibits free there to get a better handle on the complicated postwar history and geography of the City thence walked to the David Liebekind designed Jewish Museum which is less of a traditional museum than an experiential exhibit of the history of Jews in Germany. It was definitely worth visiting but heavy on the heart, We then trekked back to the center for lunch at Lutter & Wegner am Gendarmenmarkt , a traditional upscale resto that was very uncrowded for a late Monday lunch
Jim ordered their famous sauerbraten and I their seasonal pfefferlinge served with fresh tagliatelle cream sauce and two smallish veal medallions. these were perfectly cooked but I thought the 37.5 euro price a little steep, and the mushrooms, touted for quality, were not I thought as flavorful as Jims the prior day.
The sauerbraten was had a lovely sauce and the accompanying cabbage dishes (can hardly see the red cabbage in my pic) were great, but the meat seemed to me a trifle dry.
7 Likes
What’s in the middle of that steak? Fat? Gristle? And BERRY QUARK? On STEAK? 
Thanks for TOFTT, but I don’t think I’ve been missing out on this one 
We saw the CDF exhibit, too. Breathtaking, and at such a pretty gallery, too!
