MEDIA CENTRE - Off The Wall

Phil’s Travels – Berlin, Germany (03.26)

Phil’s Travels – Berlin, Germany (03.26)

My later than usual flight to Berlin left from the joy that is London City Airport. Even with bag drop-off, I was munching on a Pret salad within 15 minutes of the DLR train pulling into the airport’s station. So quick and efficient in fact, I worked by a window watching planes come and go for 90 minutes. We left under a hazy blue afternoon sky and bright sunlight. The BA flight was full and on time. Berlin weather was equally hazy and sunny but distinctly colder (and got colder and wetter with each passing day).

This trip I came prepared. Unlike Nice a couple of months ago, I was determined not to waste half my time in a non-EU passport queue. With my other passport, I zipped through the electric EU gates faster than Artemis 2. Good job too as I was at the back of the plane and would have likely spent two hours queuing for non-EU passport approval.

My luggage was already out and waiting for me and it felt great to have cleaved through Brandenburg, like a butcher’s knife through hot bratwurst. I even overcame the obscure S-Bahn ticket machines with only slight issues deciphering their incomprehensible programming. Still, way better than the Paris Metro and at least I could buy a ticket (and not waste money on a useless coupon). I remembered to validate my ticket (why so many steps to travel?) and the S9 whisked me to Berlin Zoologischer Garten (no ticket check, on any of the train journeys I took during my four says in town, surely fare dodging is rife in Berlin).

I got to my hotel (the equivalent of a Travelodge in Mayfair with roof terrace) just in time to drop off my bag and leave again for our Monday night beer and sausage event in the oldest beer cellar in Berlin (dating from 1750s). Great food, fun service, wonderful guests and lovely cohosts.

Tuesday was full of breakfasts, coffees, lunches, more coffees, meetings and evening drinks. The next day my voice was totally distressed.

Wednesday morning was more meetings and less coffee, mostly because it would appear that I had drunk all the decaf at The Hotel Palace the previous day. So, water it had to be. Their lobby is a super convenient place to meet as a ‘fringer’, however, although it purports to be a luxury hotel it failed to deliver on that promise. Not only did they fail on the decaf front, but I had to ask for lounge service and they did not clear any tables all morning.

After a lunchtime Teams call with Saudi, I collected my wonderful wife from Zoo Station for her virgin experience of the bohemian city of Berlin. We occupied ourselves for the rest of the day with lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria (Waldorf Salad, natch), coffee at The Adlon and water at Hotel de Rome (a quick tour of the city’s luxury hotels, no less, where service was universally glacial). Our strolling took us past the Bundestag, under Brandenburg Gate, through the Holocaust Memorial, along Unter den Linden, a quick stare at the empty bookshelves in Bebelplatz, across Museumsinsel (gawping at the monumental museums) and through the reconstructed old quarter of Nikolaiviertel (major disappointment – if old Berlin truly looked like this, Berlin never was much of a looker).

For dinner, the lack of any clear winners on Tripadvisor, The Fork, et al, meant we consulted AI (surprisingly hard to find a top restaurant online). It recommended a place called ‘The Meat’. Well! With a name like that we just had to go. It may have been a great BBQ place in its day (it still had meat cookers imbedded in the tables) but these days it was a very standard steak place run by some lovely Turkish chaps. Lovely people, poor food and definitely no knowledge of the sacred art of BBQ.

On the final day, we took old faithful, the S9, to Friedrichstrasse and walked north to the very moving and yet extremely stationary Berlin Wall Memorial. We learnt quite a bit about this iconic city’s unique history from this hour or so at the memorial. Well worth a visit.

We concluded our final day with lunch back in the West, at KaDeWe. A sad lunch of tasteless sausages and meatballs smothered in ketchup and mayonnaise. Very local perhaps but even less appealing than Nikolaiviertel. Our Monday night sausage venue in the East was way better and was in no fear of losing its crown for our annual event.

Berlin Airport was its usual frustrating experience. Our EU passports worked a treat, again, however, the VAT refund desk was less than beneficial. It was located in the main gates area (ie before passport control for non-EU flights) and at Gate A20, which was not in the main concourse area, but out in the farthest limb of the terminal building. The officious customs chap there refused to refund our VAT and we had to walk all the way back again to the central concourse and up to the passport machines. Why don’t they position such Tax desk somewhere more convenient for those most likely to make such claims?

Reason for refusal to refund our VAT? Apparently, if you do not have an arrival stamp in your passport (and with an EU passport you don’t get one) then no refund. Even with a UK passport they refused as it had no arrival stamp in it. By using an EU passport, evidently you are by default deemed to be an EU resident. The officious official suggested we contact consulates, embassies, UK authorities, whomever and get a stamp in the EU passport that shows you are in fact a UK resident. As if!

Thus, the VAT Refund wheeze was a complete waste of time, paperwork and stress, but it did earn us a few extra steps for the day. Plus, the quicker passport checking was well worth the loss of a possible €10 tax refund (EU better than Duty Free).

BA back was as equally busy as the outbound and City Airport was as equally a joy to arrive at as to depart from. Why cannot all airports be this way, especially Brandenburg? The UK may have many faults, but its airports do seem to have it sussed. No rest for the wicked, Gatwick was to come in a couple of days.