Part 1: Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris

[ghady]

Hey!

now that i've booked almost everything, i've suddenly come to the realization that i have no idea what to do when i actually get to the countries.

for the first half of my trip, ill be travelling with a friend of mine...we'll also be seeing other cities, but we know people there, so it's fine.

2 nights in berlin
2 nights in amsterdam
3 nights in paris

We'll be arriving very VERY early in the morning to all three places... so what do we do when we get there?

in berlin, i'd want to see what's left of the berlin wall...and this zoo i've been hearing about, but other than that, i have no idea.

amsterdam: the red light district, coffee shops, and some parks...i hear there's a flower park...but i dont know what exactly.

paris: obviously the eiffel tower, louvre, notre dame, the big cemetery thing where jim morrison is buried, place de la republique, bastille....

but my main problem is ORGANIZING all this. how do i make sure that i'll see all these things in the given amount of days??

should i go on a tour website (such as contiki) and emulate THEIR program?

sorry to be a bother i'll have more questions about my 11 days in spain and rome, but that's for another thread and a later time..

thanks a lot!

ghady

[ghady]

i've gone over wikitravel... and there's a LOT i want to see.. so i don't need advice on what to see exactly, just on how to manage my time, especially in the bigger cities.. thanks!

[world2002traveler]

ghady said:

Hey!

now that i've booked almost everything, i've suddenly come to the realization that i have no idea what to do when i actually get to the countries.

for the first half of my trip, ill be travelling with a friend of mine...we'll also be seeing other cities, but we know people there, so it's fine.

2 nights in berlin
2 nights in amsterdam
3 nights in paris

We'll be arriving very VERY early in the morning to all three places... so what do we do when we get there?

in berlin, i'd want to see what's left of the berlin wall...and this zoo i've been hearing about, but other than that, i have no idea.

amsterdam: the red light district, coffee shops, and some parks...i hear there's a flower park...but i dont know what exactly.

paris: obviously the eiffel tower, louvre, notre dame, the big cemetery thing where jim morrison is buried, place de la republique, bastille....

but my main problem is ORGANIZING all this. how do i make sure that i'll see all these things in the given amount of days??

should i go on a tour website (such as contiki) and emulate THEIR program?

sorry to be a bother i'll have more questions about my 11 days in spain and rome, but that's for another thread and a later time..

thanks a lot!

ghady

I assume this is your first trip, so I would definately recommend
getting the Rick Steves book "Europe Through the Back Door!
He is the guru of travel in europe, and is the reason I started
traveling to begin with. Rick is also the reason my first and succeeding trips have been soooooooo successful! Get the book
you won't be sorry!

WT

[ghady]

k, will do.. ill check on amazon

[herrbert]

Managing time: get yourself a map, and lay out a route, you can do walking in the inner city. For the attractions further away use the metro.

You will find Berlin is spread out, so getting you from point to point is done easiest by Metro (U-bahn). I would start to make a walk (I always walk the first day, for orientation) from Alexanderplatz (the square where you can find the big Fernsehturm (TV-Tower), to the Museuminsel, and continue walking the boulevard called 'Unter den Linden', this will lead you to the Brandenburger Tor, turn left for a look at the new Jewish memorial or right to go and see the Reichstag. For places like Zoo Station (the U2 connection) "Kurfürstendam and the Gedächtniskirche, it's better to use the metro to get there.

P.S. there is not a lot left of the wall, and what is still standing of it is usualy not in the correct spot. If you look closely to the streets around the Brandenburger Tor you can see the pattern of the wall laid out in bricks (a double row, if my memory is still good). It's not something you notice right away.

Amsterdam is the opposite as it is compact, and most of the major attractions you can find in the inner city.

For Paris I would use the same approach as Berlin, try to find a map, and make out a route, you want to follow, along the things you really want to see, and that are close enough for a walk. (Eiffeltower, and the nearby Luxembourg Park, go well together) for the rest like Pere Lachaise, use the metro.

[archdukej]

I could be wrong or way off base here, but I didn't think the bastille was still up. Again, that's going on something I might have heard a while ago.

[WillTravel]

The old Bastille prison is gone, and in the same place you have the Opera Bastille.

[madamtrashheap]

Yep, just wrote about this the other day in another post:

"Bastille - the district of the Bastille is a bit funky, but the actual prison was torn down just after the 1789 Revolution and the bricks were used to make some of the bridges over the Siene (so the people could "trample over oppression"), look at Pont de la Concorde for example. The only thing left is a white line of stones marking where the prison stood, around Place de la Bastille."

And Place de la Republique is just that, a square (well, a round actually!) with a monument in center and cars whizzing around the outside. The "big cemetary thing" is called Pere-Lachaise and is the resting place no only of Jim Morrison, but also of Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Frederic Choin, Marcel Proust...to name a (very) few. Have a look in some other posts (esp in the Pre-Travel and Itinerary sections) for ideas as there are many sights for Paris discussed in those sections too.