How are we getting to Berlin?

When I’ve got my charity place for the Berlin Marathon I’ve managed to book a really good hotel via booking.com. The hotel is a 3 star hotel and it’s called Astrid am Kurfürstendamm. I’ve tried to book a hotel close to the start/ finish line so we won’t need to travel too much. According to Google this hotel is only 30 mins away from the start if we walk, or only 20 mins if we taking the train.

From the Hotel to the Start

This hotel has 3 stars and it comes with free breakfast as well. at least we are going to save some money on food 🙂

Since I know that we are going I was keeping an eye on the flight prices. But to my surprise all prices are already over £160 / person, even with the cheapest airline.

At this point I started to wonder what other options we have to get there. I really don’t want to drive, because it’s expensive and takes way too long.

Then I realised what if we go with a train? I work for the railways, I like trains, I’m lucky to get great discounts and also its just over 9hours on the train. No hustle, no troubles, just a chilled out journey.

I was a bit worried that my other half will shoot my train plans off, but to my surprise he said yes. He’s words were ” This will be great fun “. Well he could have been sarcastic, who knows haha.

Now it’s time to start the planning. The one thing I was sure that we will need to use the Eurostar to get to the Continent. but had absolutely zero clue if its Paris or Brussels or anything else.

After a quick search I’ve found our perfect route:

London – Brussels Midi – Köln Hbf (Cologne) – Berlin Hbf

1. 06:13am London St Pancras International, UK  – 9.22am Brussels Midi , Belgium
2. 10:25am Brussels Midi , Belgium – 12:15pm Köln Hbf (Cologne), Germany
3. 12:48pm Köln Hbf (Cologne ), Germany – 17:07pm Berlin Hbf (tief), Germany

The London to Brussels route will be on the Eurostar, and the Brussels – Cologne – Berlin part will be on the DB ICE trains.

London St Pancras International to Brussels Midi – Eurostar e320

Brussels to Köln Hbf (Cologne)  – DB ICE 15 ( 406 )  

Köln Hbf (Cologne) to Berlin Hbf (tief) – DB ICE 559 ( 402 )

The journey is not the fastest, but we’ll be on a comfortable trains, and check out the beautiful scenery. I never had a train journey like this before, but I do looking forward to it.

On the way back be taking the same route, and same trains.

The price break down for this whole journey is £313 for the hotel and £138 for the trains. This train fare already including our discounts, without that it would of been £460.

The subtotal will be £451. Which is way better than the original price with the really expensive flights.

Love,