Berlin Starting Point Tours

[CruisingChick]

Has anyone used this company this past year for tours? And if so do you a detailed itinerary of what you saw and how long it took.

 

We have reserved them for our tour in Berlin, but I am interested in what others have done.

 

If you want you can e-mail me directly at cruisingchick15 (at) yahoo (dot) com.

 

Thank you.

 

Anne Maria

[elin]

We used Berlin Starting Pointin August of this year (2005). We had a group of 10 people.

Our driver, Thomas, picked us up at 7 am, (in a full 40 seater bus) for the roughly 3 hour trip in (drove for 2 hours, 1/2 break, drove for 1/2 hour) to pick up our tour guide, Andre Meral.

We went to the Reichstag and surrounding buildings (we did not go up to the top which has the really cool funnel). We walked over to the Brandenburg Gate and then to the Holocoust Memorial.

We went to the Jewish Cemetary and saw the Ravensburg Memorial then stopped for lunch.

We went to the Sony building (tip go inside, if not you won't know what the fuss is about), and to one of the last original pieces of Wall. We also drove by one of the last originial guard towers.

Some of the group went to the Jewish Museums (which they said was quite good and moving). The rest of us did a little city tour and saw Cross Mountain, the airstrip that was famous for the airlifts and some older houses.

We then went to Schoenberg (where Kennedy made his famous "I am a doughnut" speech :D ).

We dropped Andre off and went back to the ship, driving the 2 1/2 hours without a break.

The trip was a lot cheaper then the ship tour (even cheaper then their "Berlin on your own") and was $790 Euros (+ tip) for the driver, and guide.

Would highly recommend Berlin Starting Point.

Elin

[CruisingChick]

Elin,

 

Thank you so much for your response. Did you have to tell BSP ahead of time what you wanted to see?

 

Do you remember what time you got back to the ship?

 

Thanks again.

 

Anne Maria

[elin]

Hi Anna Maria,

I think we got back around 7 pm (it was roughly 12 hours total).

I had asked them what they would suggest for an itinerary, and they send some suggestions.

I circulated them to the group, and we sort of narrowed down what we wanted to see.

BSP will make suggestions for you. We did a combination of the "Classic Berlin" and the "Jewish Berlin" suggestions.

Some people in our group were Jewish, which is why our tour stopped at the Holocoust Memorial, Ravensburg and the Jewish Museum. They said that the museum was very moving.

Hope this helps.

Let me know if you need more information.

Thanks.

Elin

[elin]

The other place I would recommend you see in Berlin is Potsdam. It is home to Sansoucci (a beautiful palace) as well as Cecilienhof where Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill split up Europe after WW2.

You might have to give up a few things to go there as it is "out of town".

e