Part of East, Central & West Berlin · AN EXPATVISTA COLLECTION
Brandenburg Gate from Pariser Platz.
In November, we won a Marriott Moments auction for a daytime Gourmet Odyssey in Berlin, together with a night at the Ritz-Carlton. The package came with one immovable requirement: we had to be in Berlin on a particular date.
We built a three-night weekend around it. Rather than stay at the Ritz throughout, we booked a different hotel for each night: Me and All Hotel Berlin East Side in Friedrichshain first, the Ritz-Carlton at Potsdamer Platz for the night included with the package, and the Lindner Hotel Berlin Ku’damm for the final night.
That put us in three quite different parts of Berlin over three days, with the fixed Marriott booking sitting in the middle.
Day 1: Arrival in East Berlin (Friedrichshain)
Area: Friedrichshain / East Side Gallery
We spent the first night at the Me and All Hotel Berlin East Side in Friedrichshain. I had originally booked it while exploring a Hyatt status challenge that I later abandoned, but the location still made sense for the trip. Rather than position ourselves near the Ritz-Carlton a day early, we would spend the first night in the east before moving into central Berlin the following morning.
The hotel is about a 10–15 minute walk from the East Side Gallery, with good public transport connections into the rest of Berlin. Breakfast was included, although for this first day the hotel was mainly somewhere to arrive, leave our things and head back out.
After checking in, we went to Alexanderplatz and walked through the Christmas market. It was busy, as you’d expect in late November. We bought a German sausage with mustard, had a look around and then returned to the hotel for a while before dinner.
That evening we walked through Friedrichshain looking for somewhere to eat. Several places that appeared in recent online recommendations had closed or weren’t open, so we covered rather more ground than expected. The walk took us past graffiti-covered buildings and long residential blocks before we eventually stopped somewhere unremarkable for dinner and paid cash.
Friedrichshain on our first evening in Berlin.
The better part of the evening came back at the hotel. The bar and common areas had filled up while we’d been out, and we ended up staying for drinks longer than we’d planned. Through the large windows, the streets outside provided quite a contrast with the busy bar inside.
That was our first night in Berlin. The next morning we would leave Friedrichshain and move to the Ritz-Carlton at Potsdamer Platz for the part of the weekend that had fixed the dates in the first place.
Day 2: The Marriott Gourmet Odyssey
Hotel: Ritz-Carlton Berlin
Area: Potsdamer Platz / Mitte
The next morning we checked out of the Me and All and moved to the Ritz-Carlton at Potsdamer Platz. The hotel night was part of the Marriott Moments package, along with breakfast and a €100 hotel credit.
The fixed part of the weekend began late that morning. The Marriott Gourmet Odyssey took us between several Berlin restaurants over the course of the day, with printed programs, organized transport between stops and full dishes served at each one. Portions were substantial, particularly the schnitzel at Lutter & Wegner.
A course at POTS in the Ritz-Carlton Berlin during the Gourmet Odyssey.
I’ve written separately about the Gourmet Odyssey itself. For this trip, the important detail was its timing. It occupied most of the day but finished by mid-afternoon, leaving the evening open.
Later that evening, we walked to Augustiner am Gendarmenmarkt. It was cold, and we were the only people sitting outside, drinking German lager while a long queue formed just inside the door. We were already there, already being served and, importantly, already visible to the maître d’, so we stayed put.
Eventually a table opened up inside. We had more beer, currywurst and the Augustiner beef goulash, then set off on foot back toward the Ritz.
Walking through central Berlin after dinner at Augustiner am Gendarmenmarkt.
Our route back took us through Bebelplatz. By then the square was completely empty. The Book Burning Memorial was illuminated beneath the glass in the pavement, with the empty shelves visible below and Humboldt University behind us. It was one of the most memorable moments of the weekend, and one we hadn’t planned.
The Book Burning Memorial beneath Bebelplatz, late on Saturday evening.
We finished the night back at the Ritz-Carlton. The Curtain Club had an in-house band playing, so we stayed for drinks and used the €100 hotel credit that had come with the package.
The following day, we would leave Potsdamer Platz and move west for the final night at Kurfürstendamm.
Day 3: West Berlin (Kurfürstendamm) and Departure
Christmas market near Kurfürstendamm on our final evening in Berlin.
Area: Kurfürstendamm / West Berlin
For the final night we moved west to the Lindner Hotel Berlin Ku’damm, the second Hyatt stay of the weekend. Like the Me and All, it had originally been booked while I was considering the Hyatt status challenge, although the location also gave us a reason to spend the final part of the trip around Kurfürstendamm.
We spent the afternoon around Kurfürstendamm and stopped at the local Christmas market, which was busy with Glühwein and bratwurst. Alt-Berliner Biersalon, directly across from the hotel, provided an easy stop for beer and German food, although we’d had better currywurst elsewhere in Berlin. Later that evening, we walked to a small Japanese place for something lighter.
Breakfast was included the following morning, after which we left Berlin.
The Marriott Moments booking had fixed the middle day before we booked anything else. By adding Friedrichshain before it and Kurfürstendamm after it, the three-night stay became a trip through three different parts of Berlin rather than three nights based around the Ritz.
The separate Berlin Stay, in Numbers has the full accounting for the hotels, Marriott points and Gourmet Odyssey.