The Berlin Blogs ~ Aug 26 – 31, 2010

By Kelly Hayes-Raitt | August 31st, 2010 | 2 Comments »

En route between housesitting in Noordwijk, Holland, and accepting a writing fellowship in Białystok, Poland, I spent 4 very full days in Berlin. At first, while planning my trip, I was discouraged by the high hotel prices. Even vacation rentals were a fortune!

Then I discovered that the Netherlands’ high-speed train web site links to extensive hotel bookings, www.nshispeed.nl/en/train-promotions/last-minute-hotels .
Although the site is clumsy to navigate, it lists several hotels that cost under $100/night – a real find! The individual hotel listings are thorough and contain actual maps of their locations, as well as costs for parking, internet and breakfasts.

I’ll be checking out this site for my stays in Warsaw and Krakow to see if it holds up!

Tip: Do read the traveler reviews. I usually don’t trust reviews (I’m more concerned with location and cost than with someone else’s unstated priorities), but I chose poorly and later read the hotel I had chosen had consistently poor reviews (CityArt Hotel). I moved to the delightful Hotel Mondial, right on Kurfürstendamm (www.Hotel-Mondial.com), which honored a last-minute fare I found on www.nshispeed.nl/en/train-promotions/last-minute-hotels
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