Grand Tour of Germany with Incomarthur
My husband and I decided that we had enough tours, in which you move from country to country 2 times a day, so we chose a mono-tour. In favor of this tour was the fact that we went in August, and previous experience showed that it was not hot in Germany at that time. In fact, the tour started in Warsaw. We chose the air option - we booked tickets ourselves, we booked a hotel in Warsaw ourselves for the return trip. Another couple flew by plane, by the way, also from Donetsk, they generally arrived in Berlin 3 days earlier and managed to see everything. Ideally, this is what should have been done. And my husband and I flew to Berlin on the same day when the whole group arrived from Warsaw by bus, and were waiting for them at the hotel. Despite the fact that the group traveled by Kyiv-Warsaw train, there was no, even a bus, tour of Warsaw. They were immediately transferred to the bus and they rattled for 8 hours to Berlin.
So the option when you can choose a way to get to the city where the route begins, I think is correct. On the Internet, I read reviews about the Kyiv-Warsaw train, our tourists confirmed a lot, so I consider my air choice successful. On the way back, no tour of Warsaw was also planned, but my husband and I stayed at a hotel in the city center, looked at Warsaw, walked in the old town, and the next day we calmly got on the bus, arrived at Frederic Chopin Airport in 20 minutes and at 11 morning flew to Kyiv. The flight is only 1 hour 10 minutes! (The difference in price to Kyiv on one ticket is 300 hryvnia - the cost of one dinner in Europe). We also managed to catch a daytime high-speed train to Donetsk and were at home the same day! I can recommend the Radisson Blu Kempinski hotel - convenient location, chic hotel, wonderful breakfast! Booked on Booking com, paid about 70 dollars per day.
Bus 175 stops right outside the hotel and takes you one way to the airport and the other to Stare Miasto. The last city in Germany that we visited was Nuremberg, after which we moved to Poland. After spending the night in Poland in a transit hotel in some rundown town, we just needed to get positive impressions about this country! Instead of comfortable hotels in Germany, getting into something reminiscent of a Soviet-era hostel with broken asphalt near the entrance, one towel and inedible sausages for breakfast was a shock for the whole group! Many were going to leave unflattering reviews about this hotel! But it would be more correct to say about the unprecedented choice of our tour operator - I have been traveling regularly since 1995, but I got to a hotel of this class for the first time! Well, how to disrespect your tourists in order to spoil the impression of a two-week tour in the end!
Moreover, the trip in general turned out to be quite good. This tour in Incomarthur is rare, there are almost no reviews, so there were certain doubts. The fact that there are no traveler reviews on the website of this tour operator is very strange. I got very useful information from Ella Kovaleva's detailed and very informative report on a similar trip in 2012, which she published on her blog.
http://blogs. mail. ru/mail/kovella/303E55927181740B.html.
I advise everyone interested in this tourist destination to get acquainted with the result of her painstaking work. The tour program has changed insignificantly, more changes are possible, but Kovaleva's comments, for example, helped me make my choice.
Guide Sergey Smyslov considers this tour to be his own. Considering that for all the time there was only one licensed guide in Hamburg and Lü beck, then you can say so.
It was from the local guide that we learned a lot of interesting things not only about the sights of these cities, but also about the life of our compatriots, about cultural life, about the peculiarities of life, and the customs of this part of Germany. About what only a person who lives here and knows the local life firsthand can tell. We missed all of this on our next trip. After all, one cannot replace local licensed specialists with ordinary guides without special education, which is what Sergey Smyslov is. He mostly read stories from the guidebooks to us on the bus or talked about the life of his sister who lives in Germany. The film library was also chosen strangely - most of the films are gloomy and uninteresting, or even completely stupid modern comedies. If in the small towns that dominated our route such a “combination” of professions is still somehow justified, then regarding Berlin, it was a complete failure.
A bus tour of Berlin was held in the evening on the day of arrival, there was no walking tour at all, half of the group remained in Berlin to see the city on their own. It is not clear why such an excursion was not planned with a local guide? In fact, it was the first full day of our stay in Germany, and it was not without some hassle. Sergei appointed a meeting place where the group did not stop, his phone did not answer, some tourists even had to call the company's office in Kyiv! For example, my husband and I were waiting for a group that went to Potsdam, near the zoo at the gate with elephants, we passed this gate and at least saw it. But it turns out that the meeting was scheduled at the central gate with monkeys - and they are completely on the other side and at least a kilometer from the "elephant" gate! Moreover, our group is small, only 24 people! The bus was half empty, and what would happen if there were all 40 people!
It is clear that not everyone can hear what the leader says the first time, not everyone can immediately remember the gathering place or the way to it, someone got distracted, someone did not hear, not everyone quickly orients themselves - this always needs several repetitions and clarifications! As a teacher, this is clear to me, why can’t the employees of travel agencies working with people understand and get used to doing this? It seems that they do not read our reviews, because they repeat the same mistakes from trip to trip! Lack of academic education made it impossible for Sergei to give tourists the necessary information about the Berlin museums.
Many had no idea that the bust of Nefertiti was exhibited in the Egyptian Museum, and the Pergamon Altar, which gave the name to the Pergamon Museum, is one of the structures of the ancient Greek civilization, which has no analogues in the world, surpassing in safety the masterpieces of Hellenistic culture stored in the British Museum in London. And if you tell an almost detective story of saving these treasures from destruction, transportation to Germany, the efforts of scientists to preserve this cultural heritage of mankind during the Second World War, there would probably not be a single person who would not want to see these marvelous monuments...
Despite certain shortcomings, I cannot call Sergey a bad leader. Especially considering all the reviews about the people of this profession, which are replete with the Internet. He is not rude, behaves evenly with everyone, listens to the comments, tries to satisfy the sometimes opposite requests of tourists.
Our group was no exception. Some people fanatically visited all the main and additional excursions, all the museums, castles, cathedrals, squares, streets, gateways possible within the reach, and it still seemed to them not enough. And the other part consisted of people who realized at one fine moment that it is impossible to grasp the immensity, and that travel memories are often dominated by those associated either with a wonderful dinner against the backdrop of nature, with the taste of Rhine wine or a rare brand of German beer, or with a visit, for example, to thermal baths that are inaccessible in our everyday life. My husband and I consider ourselves to be the second half of the tourists. 12 people out of 24 decided to visit the baths in Bad Harzburg, for 6 euros they spent an hour and a half outdoors in the beautiful warm pools, got a lot of pleasure.
The rest of the bus took to Goslar, and then Sergei called for us and managed to lead us around the city in the same way as the rest. Everyone spent their time as they wanted, for which we thank him. We liked the trip because the trips, except for the last 2, were short, we arrived at hotels no later than 8 pm, spent three nights in the same hotels for two nights, had free time, in some places for 1.5-2 hours. In addition, on a previous trip, we visited Neuschwanstein Castle and this time in Fü ssen we were able to just wander around this picturesque city and visit another baths. I can't tell you more about these baths. The second couple from Donetsk, Sergey and Oksana, found out about them even before the trip. They are avid travelers, have already been in Germany, so they were looking for new information. And found! The baths are called the Royal Crystal Baths and are located between Fü ssen and the village of Schwangau.
Yes, this is where the name of the Hohenschwangau castle adjacent to Neuschwanstein comes from. We were waiting for a bus in Fü ssen at the bus station, and then we decided to ask how much it costs to get to Crystal Terme by taxi. All drivers and taxi drivers speak English fluently, the answer suited us very well - 10 euros! We're four! After 6-7 minutes we went out near the term. The buildings stand in a field, a huge area is fenced with a not very high lattice, on the one hand - a meadow, on the other - a valley and a view of the mountains. Clean, beautiful cows graze in the meadow, like cows in Switzerland and Austria. Their pasture is separated from the road by a single thin wire through which a weak current is passed. On the other hand, a breathtaking view of the mountains and Neuschwanstein Castle opens up! We are simply stunned by this view! There were many interesting and rare places on the tour.
Berlin under construction, which is turning into one of the most beautiful capitals of Europe before our eyes, seaside Hamburg, which struck with its magnificent architecture, the attractiveness of the bustling port and its unlikeness to other German cities. The wonderful towns of Wolfenbü ttel, Hanoversch Mü nden, Cochem, Hildesheim, Rü desheim are the capital of Rhine wine. Luxurious Wiesbaden, ancient Heidelberg and Nuremberg. As if descended from paintings and engravings, perfectly preserved half-timbered houses, amazing town hall squares, which surprised us with an abundance of fairs in the mornings and life-affirming evening gatherings with a glass of beer of local residents, when all the squares literally turned into open-air cafes. They imagined themselves to be residents of impregnable castles, which preserved a lot of evidence of the medieval life of that time.
We saw unusual structures that we had not suspected before this trip: the park ensemble of Kassel with a giant sculpture of Hercules on top and a cascade of fountains, the "German corner" - the place where the Moselle flows into the Rhine with a monument to Kaiser Wilhelm towering above it, the majestic soaring over the Rhine valley Niederwald statue symbolizing Germany. We were surprised by the even rows of vines on the steep slopes of the mountains and the well-groomed banks of the Moselle, Werra and the Rhine, places once conquered by the Romans and therefore nicknamed the romantic road. But I gave my heart to Bavaria, it seems to me that it is difficult to find places more beautiful. Here the mountain range of the Alps continues, stretching through Austria and Switzerland, lakes, which I have already admired in the Austrian Salzkammergut.
It is here that the "swan lake" - Schwansee - is located, which inspired Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to write music for what has become one of the most famous ballets in the world. In such beautiful surroundings are Konigliche Kristall-Terme Schwangau, where we spent two unforgettable hours. Thermae consist of pools inside and outside the building. The therapeutic effect is due to the different concentrations of salt present in the water, from 2.5 to 12 percent. Warm pools with waterfalls, whirlpools, massage jets, like in a jacuzzi. A pool with a strong current that carries you effortlessly in a circle, a neutron pool, we understood that this is a novelty, but, of course, we did not understand the details. There are also saunas, hammam, cafes, open-air restaurants and inside, there is a massage room, cosmetology, a gym. It would be great to be here for a week!
On the green grass, surrounded by sculptures and flower arrangements, white comfortable sunbeds for relaxing and sunbathing, umbrellas and other awnings are placed. On the second floor there is a sauna for those who like to take a steam bath without clothes, there is an additional fee. 2 hours was enough for us, we paid 10.5 euros per person. It's good that you thought to take your camera with you, we rented the pools and amazing views of the mountains and the castle. With the exit from the term, our enthusiasm did not end. After walking a little along the road leading from the thermal baths, we ended up, I would say, on a farm consisting of several houses. The houses were located in one row on a hill, from which a stunning view of the valley and mountains with the castle opened. From there it was simply impossible to leave, such beauty surrounded us. And the houses themselves, decorated with paintings and flowers, could not be photographed. Fortunately, one of them turned out to be a hotel with a restaurant.
We got an additional opportunity to be in this magical place. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this day was one of the brightest impressions of the whole trip. For the lucky ones who are going to visit Bavaria, I advise you to look on the Internet for the road to this hotel: www. hotelsteiger. de. Do not confuse with the hotel of the same name in Austria, see Schwangau. Our holiday in Fussen proved once again that at the end of any trip, no matter how interesting it may be, you need at least a day to rest and relax, without racing and fear of being late for the bus, with the opportunity to chat with tourists from the group, take a walk, wander on your own around the city or lie on the beach, whatever you like. Usually, additional excursions are planned on such days, and few people refuse them, being afraid to miss something interesting. We were able to relax only because we had already visited Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein.
The advantage of the tour can be considered that most of the objects were still included in the program, and were not declared as additional excursions. The travel agency provided an excellent bus, professional drivers, hotels in Germany that meet all needs. Anyone who loves to travel, who wants to get to know this highly organized and extremely interesting country for tourists, I recommend to go to the Grand Tour in Germany.
