Evie has a knack for picking out nice, safe and modest hotels in cool areas of town and reasonably priced for the market, and most importantly, conveniently located. She did it for our trip to Peru and did it again for this trip. The nights in Heidelberg were at the Crown Plaza. This was organized by the company (not Evie) and was the basic international business hotel (like a Marriott), but had the advantage of being near the old town.
In Bern Evie really picked right. We stayed at the Goldener Schuessel Hotel, a 500 year old building that claims to be the oldest inn in the old part of the old town, but was less than 10 minute walk from the main train station (although we repeatedly managed to get lost in the course of the short walk between the station and the hotel).
The hotel was in area with some upscale and shops (e.g., a quintessential small bookstore stuffed with books, next to a store specializing in videos of old American musicals (Gene Kelly’s “Dancing in the Rain” and similar shows were playing the in window), a small music store (selling Australian didgeridoos along with the usual saxophones, trumpets, etc.), beauty shops, a fabric store, a kite store and small specialty furniture stores (with very contemporary and uncomfortable looking furniture), along with restaurants, old churches and residential apartments. At times you could hear someone practicing scales on a piano from an apartment above the street.
Similarly, in Munich, we stayed at a nice, clean hotel in a largely residential neighbor (apartments) about a 15 minute walk from the main train station and about 20 minutes from the main plaza in the old part of Munich. Here’s a picture.
EVIE'S COMMENT: The places we stayed in Bern, Neuchatel and Munich were so nice. However, none of those hotels have air conditioning in the rooms. So it might have been a different experience during a heat wave in the summer!
EVIE'S COMMENT: The places we stayed in Bern, Neuchatel and Munich were so nice. However, none of those hotels have air conditioning in the rooms. So it might have been a different experience during a heat wave in the summer!
But what do these gracious old buildings look like inside? Actually, the rooms are modern with very contemporary furnishings.These are some pictures of our room in Munich (the room in Bern was similar in style and size). Note the “eiderdecke” instead of blankets on the beds and the Mozart theme (Beethoven and Mozart are a big deal here, with namesake street names and plazas).
The Europeans are also very clever with their bathrooms and particularly the showers. As a water conservation measure, the toilets allow for a “big” flush (the big button) or a “small” flush (the small button), depending on the requirements of the situation.
(In Neuchatel we stayed at an old abbey, an experience which merits its own entry, and in Frankfurt, at a Holiday Inn Express, near the train station in downtown Frankfort where we arrived from Munich and from where we caught a commuter train to airport the next morning. At that point, we were looking less for a European cultural experience and more for predictability and convenience to the train station.)
