Member Since: 29 Apr 2008
Location: London
Posts: 533
If not on your list and you have the time you might like to consider the Posts and Communications museum, for its restored architecture and exploded mail coach, the Industrial museum and Stalin's alley of flats for favoured workers. The Spandau fortress might also be of interest and is fairly close to the S bahn.
Looking forward to following your travels and culinary adventures.
The Potato house used to offer good value meals but might be a bit down market from your current feed.
John
25th Aug 2023 11:06 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73075
And bye bye Berlin. First long haul train of the trip, it’s about 20mins late due to “train repairs” but it’s running. And they are not on strike, for which we had a rental car booked just in case.
Gratuitous train pic.
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Will bung up a few pics from the last couple of days once we get to Frankfurt Airport hotel, which is 4 hours away, assuming the train doesn’t break down or repairs didn’t work.
28th Aug 2023 9:43 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73075
And greetings from Frankfurt Airport, our home for the next few hours. Got a fast t’internet connection so making the most of it re posting pics.
Bit of Bangles time, walking like an Egyptian!
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We weren’t allowed to take a close up of Nefertiti so long shot, bit of a selfie and peeps photobombing!
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SWEEEEEEEEEEEET!!
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And this dude to ensure you exited via the gift shop!!
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Around Museum Island is the only place we saw evidence of the Battle For Berlin. This was not a good place to be back in the day!
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And a day looking at ancient stuff and art wouldn’t be the same without the occasional severed head. Spoiler alert but here is our old fave John the Baptist (of Caravaggio fame) with his head on a platter, this time in wood.
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Sunday was a long day on foot in the royal palaces around Potsdam. Lots of walking and standing around, feet were hammered at the end!
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Lots and lots of pics!!
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Incl a Caravaggio that doesn’t include a severed noggin. Now that’s gotta hurt!! You could deffo see the quality in that pic cf the ten-a-penny Rubens!
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Cheeky gold monkey on the walk to the next palace. Just like being in Thailand!
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The Neues Palace. The palace side:
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The staff/service side. Which looks grander!
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The Grotto guarded by sea monsters!
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And finally the fantastic floor of the ball room. A total horlicks form a building point of view as it’s was supported by by bits of soggy wood over the grotto, 25m span and all 900t of it!
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And that’s enough culture for a Tuesday. Back to modern times!
29th Aug 2023 7:09 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73075
Oh, and when I said greetings from Frankfurt Airport, it’s greetings from here:
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There are 3 terminals at FRA, T1, T2 and the Lufthansa First Terminal. None of your lounges malarkey.
And as they have a bath, so they have bath ducks to hand out. Again, SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
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We’re in 1st on the flight to Tokyo, right up in the pointy end in the fore-most seats of the fire-most cabin. Will be a new experience for us as never flown 1st, ignoring 1st on American carriers which is really Prem Econ. I know it sound expensive going 1st but it just wasn’t. I’m in charge of sorting out our flights and my aim is to get business class for the same money as Prem Econ, which I kind of achieved on our return flights from FRA - HND. We sorted out our seats on the outward leg and the ANA flight back, then I saw the “upgrade” button and it revealed an offer we simply couldn’t refuse! So we’ve ended up with a real treat outward. I’ve been told not to make a habit of clicking that upgrade button though!!
Will take some pics on the ac, and from the drive from the terminal to the 747, we get driven to it, hopefully in a Porsche. Or a van.
And as a PS, sooooooooooooooo glad we went to Berlin for a few days. One options was to travel to FRA yesterday, o/night here then this flight out. With the ATC chaos back home at the mo, that would deffo have been hair pulling out level of stress. Bullet dodged!
29th Aug 2023 7:28 am
stew 46
Member Since: 01 Dec 2011
Location: cornwall
Posts: 10147
Have a great time 👍 , Berlin is a great place , work in east Germany (Halla ) for a few months then in Berlin for 6 months back in 1989 ish ish 🥟🥟-------------------------------------------------
if you cant hold on dont let go , it ill come in handy for something even if you never use it.
D3 SE 05,
110 s wagon 300 tdi SOLD
h top transit
crew cab transit
transit connect
ausa dumper, muck truck .
peljob 2.5 digger
06 L 200 crew cab
29th Aug 2023 9:08 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73075
We deffo like Berlin, and will be back prob in 2025.
29th Aug 2023 9:09 am
kajtzu
Member Since: 10 Aug 2017
Location: Helsinki
Posts: 6744
It’s very interesting actually that LH extends lounge privileges to you on an upgrade. Some airlines selling last minute upgrades, upgrade only the in-cabin product (class) but do not extend lounge privileges. QR is one of them, EK is another.
29th Aug 2023 9:12 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73075
Deffo the full 1st experience. I did see somewhere that it was only BusClass baggage allowance, 1st allowance weigh in at almost 1/2 tonne between the 2 of us, 4 cases and 2 carry on each. For us it wasn’t a last minute upgrade, we did it just after booking back in March.
PS Cheers folks!!
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Last edited by DSL on 29th Aug 2023 9:30 am. Edited 1 time in total
29th Aug 2023 9:16 am
kajtzu
Member Since: 10 Aug 2017
Location: Helsinki
Posts: 6744
Yeah the FCT at FRA is definitely a nice place to spend time at
Happy journeys
29th Aug 2023 9:22 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73075
And they do a very nice lunch! Caesar’s Salad meets Surf & Turf, with Champers as well!!
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Choc tarte & ice cream ordered, with Sauterne desert wine.
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I’m going to miss this place!!
29th Aug 2023 10:16 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73075
Aside from surfing here at 30somthing thousand feet, a very civilised way to get to the AC.
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Really strange following taxiing aircraft!!
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And to the not so old Queen of the Skies.
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And just enough leg room, and 4 windows each!!
On the vino but delaying dinner for a couple of hours. First course is caviar with all the trimmings, that’s also another first for us!!
29th Aug 2023 1:21 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73075
Now over the Black Sea, luckily pretty south! It’s officially massive!!
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To quote Darth Vader before he became Darth Vader, this is tense! At least there are ac flying N of us.
29th Aug 2023 2:36 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73075
And greetings from Tokyo!! Looooooooong and bumpy flight, managed to get few hours sleep. Totally knackered and we’d forgotten how yuck jet lag is going this way!!
It was deffo the way to travel, a one off treat for my 60th and not something I’m getting used to. One last pic for posterity, plus the single red rose with its own light was SWEEEEEEET! And did I say we had 4 windows each, plus the fact that I’ve repeated to SWMBO so many times that she’s banned be from repeating it, we were further forward than the flight deck peeps!!
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Good flight in over Tokyo Bay to Henada Airport, whisked though immigration & customs then onto the trains to the hotel. Good to be back in Japan, and back in a country where the only things we can read on signs are the numbers!
On way in passed Mt Fuji. Not quite Mt Fuji = ticked though. Last time we saw it we were on the train and the views, or glimpses, were between buildings and rail “fences”.
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Couple of pics of Tokyo c/o Mrs DSL as she was that side.
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And our ac, looking a cut above all the rest of the two engined offerings. She needs the extra engines to carry those bath ducks!!
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And once at the hotel, the view. We’re on the 31st floor, great views towards Mt Fuji, we’re expecting those towers to be gone by tomorrow so we can see said stratovolcano.
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Finally, lovely hot canapés. Lovely food, lovely fizz and all at brunch time, well so my body clock is screaming.
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Did I say I hate jet lag?
PS View from the lounge now, very Blade Runner with the red lights!
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30th Aug 2023 9:40 am
ianm27
Member Since: 02 Jun 2016
Location: Hertfordshire
Posts: 2154
Great pics (especially the ones taken by Mrs DSL) and good to see you have succumbed to 1st class with all the trimmings and 4 windows
Keep up the foodie pics, (body is a temple ) buddha status fast approaching? ?Uncle Ray's spare wheel protector
Limo Tint
Blackvue front & rear dashcam
Cruise control switch pack
Bodsy's remote for FBH
30th Aug 2023 9:51 am
Rescue01
Member Since: 14 Jan 2008
Location: Aberdeen
Posts: 2514
Loving it already Derek.I’ve not left this island for 6years Its not the height of the fall but the sudden stop at the bottom that hurts!!
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