Beyond the Wall: A Journey Through Berlin
 

Welcome to another TR from me. I hoped you enjoyed the last one. It is time to start the TR because tomorrow we head to our destination. Working week is done because tomorrow I have a bank holiday so I can enjoy a long weekend. A couple of month ago I decided to spend my long weekend in Berlin. I haven't been there for a long time and I wanted to use my new M&M Senator status for this trip. As a result I'm cheating on Oneworld and use four flights with Lufthansa to get there. Routing is ZRH - FRA - BER and back on the same route. Lufthansa already checked me in automatically. I don't know how they would deal when I would need to cancel the flight last second?

The plan for this trip is:
Thursday: Heading to our destination with a stopover in FRA for around 2hours. Enough time to explore the ZRH and FRA Senator lounges
Friday: Lurking around Berlin
Saturday: More Lurking around Berlin
Sunday: Time to leave Berlin and go home with another stopover in FRA for around 6hours. So I can explore the Senator lounges in BER and FRA.

I haven't o'silly time start but not far away from it. I have to be in ZRH airport around 9am.

I can also tick some points from my bucketlist. One point was to visit the Swiss Lounge in Zurich and now I can go into the Senator lounge, even better.

I was not sure if I take this trip because I got sick last Sunday but recovered quite good from it. Still have a cold and my voice sounds strange but fit enough to fly. So sit back, relax, grab some snacks & drinks and enjoy this new TR which starts now. I was lazy and used ChatGPT to write my title of this trip and was surprised what came out.
Now, it's time to pack and prepare for tomorrow's flight.

Lufthansa is still trying to sell me an upgrade to C but not for the price they offer me. I would pay double the price I already paid for this trip. I say not thankyou.

Let's start the journey. Alarm went up 6:30am to catch the 7:31 train from Berne.

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On Weekends and public holidays we need to change trains in Zurich to get to the Airport. Today it was a replacement train. Yes this happens here as well.

In Zurich the other train was just across the platform bit was quite full.

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At the airport all left the train.

When flying BA or AY I would head strait to checkin 2. Not today because we are flying Lufthansa and there we can use checkin 1 or 3. In 1 there is a dedicated area for Senstor and Hons.

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But closed today.
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Then over to the normal checkin desks.
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Here the entrance to thr Hon Checkin

Then direct to security. I haven't been at checkin 1 for years so I didn't know that there is another security. The other security at checkin 2 must be very busy as I could see from outside.
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Security was emtpy. Through in minutes.

Now strait to the Swiss Senator Lounge.

I'm used to head to the Aspire Lounge where you have access with BA and AY.

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On the right end there would be the Aspire Lounge.
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But this time we go the other direction
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To the Senator Lounge

There are two lounges here. So take the right one. 😉 Short beep from my Boarding Pass and a welcome by name from the dragon and I was in.

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Up the stairs into the lounge.
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It is a very nice lounge. Some areas are hidden and you don't find them almost. So one point off my bucket list.


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Second breakfast

I enjoy the lounge and wait that my bus arrives. Still some time to kill in the lounge.

Some more pictutes of the lounge.

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Of course they can't be missed.

My flight is already delayed by 10 min. And it looks like I have a bus gate.

Gate B05 is gate to go and it is a bus gate.

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Boarding stsrted suddently. There were no annoincement and the gate keeper's voice wasn't loud enough.

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View of this bird.

D-AIBE an A319 is my aircraft to Frankfiurt.

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6F is my seat and no seat blocked next to me. So sad. I hoped as Senator this will happen.


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Leg room is ok. Well I'm not the smallest guy.

Let's see how the service back in the bus is on LH.

Next stop Frankfurt in around an hour.

Bon voyage! :p

Looking forward to reading your report about my adopted home town. Shame I’m not around this weekend or we could have met up. Safe travels and have fun!

There is always another time.

Good luck navigating our “wonderful” airport. ;)

Boarding was completed 10 after scheduled time. 5 min later we left the remote stand. 25 min after scheduled departure time we took off.

Flight time was announced with 50 min was at the end 40. Service on board was short.

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A bottle of water and a german swiss chocolate. Chocolate was good.

After some minutes in flight our decend into FRA started. We approacjed from the East.

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View to Frankfurt
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View of so called Mainhatten

Almost at scheduled arrival time we landed. Today seems to be a remote stand day. This flight parked somewhere in nowhere. Another bus to terminal.

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D-AIBE

Here we are at the Senator lounge in FRA.

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I have to say the lounge in ZRH is much nicer. It is quite busy. I don't took any picture of the seating area because of too many people.

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Franziskaner Weissbier and a really good plate.

Next flight will be a Lufthansa Wetlease. Operated by Cityjet.

Gate A50 is the next gate to go. Yet another bus gate.

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This beauty is standing next to my gate.

Boarding has started and almost complete. CRJ are very small and cramped. EI-HIA brings me to Berlin.

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It is 5 min past departure time and it seems boarding completed. I hope this hour is gone fast enough.

Next stop BER

We left FRA a couple of minutes late. Flight time was 55 min announced.

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During Taxi this bird was visible.

It took a while to get to the runway. 3:05 pm we left FRA. Service was the same as on the previous flight.

After 30 min in flight we started our decend into Berlin.

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Circled around the Berlin Tesla Factory.

Just at 4pm we landed and taxied to another remote stand. Took a while we were on the bus. As I arrived to the baggage belt the first suitcase just delivered. Shortly after my one arrived.
Time to take public transport to the centre.

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S9 is my train. The first I missed so had to take the second. I know there are faster ways but with the S9 I don't have to change.
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We take the S9 until Warschauer Strasse
I didn't had to wait to long until the next train arrived.

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Next stop Hotel