Germany Travel Guide
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New and Neat Melia Hotel Düsseldorf Open Now
Popped into our Hotelchatter Flickr Pool recently (thanks, jochenb) were some pics of a new hotel in the Sol Melia Hotel group: the Melia Hotel Düsseldorf, Germany. It's just opened up last month and is certainly lookin' neat and tidy, if the photos are anything to go by.
More info about the new Melia: it's right in the center of Düsseldorf, and it's opposite the Hofgarten, famous for being the oldest public park in the whole of Germany. And it's close to shopping and sightseeing districts, and most conveniently, just a ten-minute drive from the airport.
The Düsseldorf Melia has some opening offer rates starting with their basic double room at €99 ($145) or €139 ($205) with breakfast – that does sound like a lot more for a morning meal, but German breakfasts can be quite lavish affairs (we're not guaranteeing anything here though).
Tags: Hotel Renovations / Germany Hotels / Radisson Blu Hotels / → All Tags
Sneak Peek at the Newly-Revamped Radisson Blu Hamburg
Design-minded travelers to Hamburg, Germany, will be happy to hear the Radisson Blu Hamburg reopens this week after a 48-million-euro makeover. Claiming the title of Hamburg’s biggest hotel, the hotel has 556 rooms and stands nearly 400 feet tall.
Thanks to the renovation, brand-new features include a 23,000-square-foot conference area/ballroom, freshened-up lobby with two lounges, two restaurants and bars, and a fitness center. Plus, the guestrooms have been re-imagined with individual themes.
The lobby now has white tile floors, black walls, and an under-lit reception area (see photo above — looks pretty good, dontchya think?). Think mod chandelier lighting and gold armchairs alongside Arne Jacobsen Egg chairs. Meanwhile, Swedish architect Christian Lundwall refreshed the guestrooms in three styles: natural (light colors, beechwood furniture); urban (modern aesthetic, oak furniture, Amtico flooring); and mansion (Turkish rugs, rosewood furniture, silver wardrobes). The rooms all have free Wi-Fi (yay!) and some have city views.
Tags: Fitness Hotels / Berlin Hotels / Hotel Openings / Hotel Spas / Hotel Opening Rates / → All Tags
Welcome to the Aspria Hotel: A Spa And Gym With Rooms On Top
The W Barcelona may be stealing all the headlines but it’s not the only new kid on the European hotel block this autumn. The Aspria Hotel in Berlin looks pretty nice – and it’s rather more affordable, too.
Opening next month on 6 November in the posh Charlottenburg district (west of the Tiergarten), it doesn’t have the most auspicious of pedigrees – Aspria is a chain of health clubs in Europe - but they’re now offering accommodation at their digs in Hannover and Berlin. Original, but interesting – it means that the spa and fitness area are going to be souped up no end. In fact, the Berlin spa is going to be 14,000 m sq – to be shared by just 42 rooms. Look at that pool. We're doing lengths in our heads right now.
Tags: Oktoberfest Hotels / Munich Hotels / Rocco Forte Hotels / Luxury Hotels / → All Tags
It's Time to Start Prosting Again
Oktoberfest 2008.
Yes, Oktoberfest is back! Or will be back on September 19 with the Lord Mayor of Munich cries, "Ozapft is!" ("It's been tapped"). But if you're planning on making your way to Munich for the festivities, we recommend doing two things.
First, read our tips for Surviving Oktoberfest. We attended it last year and if you'd like not awake the morning after with rain-soaked pants and vomit-covered sneakers, then you'd do well to heed our advice.
Second, checkout the Oktoberfest Package from the Charles Hotel, a Rocco Forte property, in the city's old Botanical Gardens.
Tags: Hotel Video Tours / HotelChatter Reviews / Quirky Hotels / German Hotels / Hotel Clocks / → All Tags
Looking For A Quirky Hotel? Try Ruedesheimer Schloss's Glockenspiel
This video also has some narration to it so adjust accordingly if you're at work!
First, you might be asking yourself, “what exactly is a glockenspiel, actually?” We’re glad you asked. A glockenspiel is a set of bells or metal bars that you can use to play a tune. It’s sort of like a xylophone, only kookier, and a lot more fun.
While on a recent trip to Germany’s winemaking Rheingau region, we got the chance to stay at the Breuer’s Ruedesheimer Schloss Hotel in the picturesque riverside town of Ruedesheim am Rhein. The hotel has a real-life clock tower glockenspiel that peals out four German drinking tunes (the favorites of the current owner, Heinrich's, father) on the hour every hour. We worried that the sharp tones would wake us up a little earlier than we’d like after a day (and night) of sampling the region’s famous Rieslings, but the bells only ring from 10:00am-10:00pm, so we were assured of a good night’s sleep.
Tags: Germany Hotel Guide / Hotel Beds / HotelChatter Reviews / → All Tags
Parallelogram Beds and Fancy Dolls in German Wine Country
HotelChatter's Eric Rosen recently spent some time in Austria and Germany. All this week, he'll be rounding up his hotel observations. Any tips, suggestions, questions? Let us know.
Beds can be so boring. Soft or hard. Big or little. In the middle or the room or in the corner. No matter what else they are, they are almost always square (or circular at certain establishments we’ll never admit to having patronized ourselves—those ones that usually come with a mirrored ceiling, too). But have you ever wanted to venture a night’s sleep on a bed of a different shape? A parallelogram, say? We didn’t realize we had this very unique secret urge ourselves until we were shown to the Rapunzel Suite (complete with freaky, spotlighted doll!) of the Märchenhotel Anno 1640 in picturesque Bernkastel-Kues, in Germany’s wine-producing Mosel Valley. Turns out it had just the right angles for some perfect nocturnal slumber sprawling.
Tags: Hotel Video Tours / HotelChatter Reviews / Hotel Amenities / Germany Hotel Guide / Hotel WiFi / → All Tags
Five Things We Love (And A Few We Hate) About Roomers Hotel Frankfurt
HotelChatter's Eric Rosen recently spent some time in Austria and Germany. All this week, he'll be rounding up his hotel observations. Any tips, suggestions, questions? Let us know.
During a recent trip to Germany, we got the chance to check out the city’s newest Design Hotel, Roomers (from the same folks behind The Pure and The Bristol). Check out the resumé of our love-hate relationship with the hotel below.
First, the love…
Rotating TV Sets!: Call us a sucker for fancy gadgets…or maybe just the fact that we can’t live without our BBC World while we primp for a night out, but we absolutely love the swiveling flat-screen TVs that let you watch German language soaps with equal ease from the bed or from the bathroom sink.
Tags: Hotel Packages / Berlin Hotels / Hotel Deals / → All Tags
Concorde Berlin Has Second Best Fall of the Wall Package
So it's been twenty years since the Berlin wall came down, and that's as good a reason as any to visit one of our all-time favorite cities, Berlin. To celebrate the anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, the Hotel Concorde Berlin has got an "Ich bin ein Berliner" package going through to December 28.
If you decide to be a Berliner for a couple of days, you can get two nights' accommodation, buffet breakfast, one dinner, plus the authentic Berlin part: a Palm guide, Berlin Wall map and a private guided tour in a Trabbi — those old east German cars which somehow haven't fallen apart yet.
The deal starts at around $370 per person based on double occupancy and the Concorde is said to have some of the biggest rooms in the city. Oh, and this deal is a whole lot more logical than the time the Concorde decided to throw French lessons into their accommodation deals; but it's not the best Berlin Wall deal we've come across; remember the Ritz Carlton's Remember the Wall deal which even includes an actual chunk of the wall? Much cooler.
[Photo: gavinandrewstewart]
Tags: NYT Reviews / Berlin Hotels / → All Tags
Berlin's Circus Hotel Is Not to Be Confused with the Circus Hostel
The difference between a hostel and a hotel may only be marked by one lowly letter “s,” but anyone who’s ever stayed at a hostel knows the experience can be starkly different. Let’s just say “peekaboo” showers can take on a decidedly more awkward meaning.
So when a legendary hostel opens a 64-room hotel, it’s hard not to cock your eyebrows at least a bit. In Berlin, the owners of Circus Hostel did just that, last October opening the Circus Hotel (sans “s”). The NYT checked the new spot out to discover whether backpackers are getting richer or the rest of us are feeling the pinch.
Tags: Hotel Deals / Hotel Packages / Europe Hotels / Luxury Hotels / Rocco Forte Hotels / → All Tags
Three For Two With The Rocco Forte Collection
Not going to Europe this summer? This might tempt you. Stay two nights at a Rocco Forte Collection hotel (with 12 to choose from in places you’d like to be anyway, like Rome, Prague, Berlin and St Petersburg), and they’ll throw in a third for free.
The only caveat – the offer is only valid for stays during high summer, between July 27 and September 4. Unfortunately, that’s also when most of the locals will have deserted places like Rome for the seaside – but hey, at least the buses will be a little less crowded.
With this offer, the Hotel de Rome in Berlin costs $861 per room for the three nights – not so bad for $287, given that it includes breakfast (although it excludes VAT). Brown’s Hotel in London, meanwhile, will set you back $950 for the full stay. So now all you have to do is choose which one.
Tags: Hotel Openings / Berlin Hotels / Budget Hotels / → All Tags
Add The Michelberger to Our 'Worst Hotel Rooms For Drunk People' List
Remember our list of the Worst Hotel Rooms for Drunk People? Yes, well: just as we were reminiscing about our fantastically blurry, buzzed and stumble-y weekend, we came across photos of Berlin's new Michelberger Hotel on Contemporist. And as we gazed at the pics of these rooms, the party girl alter-ego inside of us, well...she cried.
The 119-room hotel is on its way to Berlin and is slated for a September opening. Contemporist says:
Five different room categories offer a range of different layouts. The rooms display a high level of space efficiency and lots of vertical drama and airiness - a feat allowed by the placing of loft bed areas above the bathrooms. Most rooms are for singles, couples and threesomes but other options including The Big One allow groups of 4 or even more to room together.
Tags: Killer View / Berlin Hotels / → All Tags
You Can Sorta See the Berlin Cathedral From the Radisson Blu
We are suckers for a room with a killer view. We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.
Oh, this? Oh, no big thang, just the Berlin Cathedral, a.k.a. the Berliner Dome.
We're sort of on a Berlin high here at HC this summer (since our own JetSetCD just returned from a jaunt out to Germany), and so this shot out the window of room 6111 at the Radisson Blu Berlin made us sorta giddy.
Also making us giddy: the ginormous cylindrical aquarium that runs up the middle of the hotel's lobby atrium — which makes for a pretty fly killer view on the inside of the hotel, too.
Rooms like this are a bit on the pricier side, though: we're assuming this was taken from a business class room (the website shows that only biz class rooms seem to have a view of the Berlin Cathedral), and those go for about 245 Euros — around $245 USD.
[Photo: Wolfgang Jung]
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