My husband and I, with two teenagers, are planning a two-centre trip to Berlin and Leipzig to visit our older daughter in college in Leipzig. We are hoping to travel in mid-June for five to six days. Can you give us some advice in terms of nice mid-price hotels, sightseeing and train travel between the cities as we will be first-time visitors to Germany? – KOK, Galway
Berlin is a great city and you will have fun exploring it. It is also a very big city, so be prepared to walk a lot and not get to see all the things you thought you would.
It has two central transport hubs, Potsdamer Platz in the west and Alexanderplatz in the east. It is easy to get around using the underground or buses. You can buy a Berlin welcome card which will include city transport and discounts to many places of interest, details on visitberlin.de.
One way to see a lot of the city is to take a bike tour. Fat Tire bike tours have a good selection of tours with guides to fill you in on all the history, fatbiketours.com. The tour of the eastern side of the city is very interesting and also visits the abandoned Templehof Airport where you can cycle on the runway.
The television tower near Alexanderplatz gives a rotating bird's eye view of the city, although go early as it is very popular, tv-turm.de/en.
A bus tour is an ideal way to see a lot, or the river trip on the Spree is a good way to see how the architecture of the city has changed. There are dozens of museums and memorials and the Reichstag is a popular place to visit. The classical museums are on Museum Island and others are dotted around the city.
Shopping is great and the teenagers will love the variety of big brands, German stores and the markets. There is great boutique shopping in the Mitte district and on Sundays, the Mauerpark flea market is a classic.
Getting from Berlin to Leipzig is easy by train or bus. You can book tickets online on bahn.de or via railshop.ie, prices are about €38 return with reductions for students. The bus companies are berlinlinienbus.de and meinfernbus.de, fares would be under €20 each.
I am sure your daughter will be a great tour guide to Leipzig and you can see what to expect on Leipzig. travel/en/. Hotels in Germany are good value with great standards.
The following groups are mid- priced hotels with prices under €100 a night and in some cases, very well under. Grand City Hotels, grandcityhotels.de, Lindner Hotels, lindnerhotels.de/en, NH Hotels, nh-hotels.com/hotels/germany. Watch out for hotels that include breakfast in the price and wifi. See germany.travel for general tourism information.
My grandson is getting married in Stresa, Italy, in September. About six to eight family members are travelling there for a week. Could you recommend an apartment of villa suitable to rent for that number of people? – EOB, Dublin
Stresa on Lake Maggiore has a lot of small apartments and houses and not many big properties. There are a number of websites where you can see places to rent. On Booking. com and there are a few houses/villas that will sleep eight or so, with prices about €1,400 for a week.
The following properties are on homeaway.co.uk, p3731268, p1023390, p6301241. Some are a mixture of apartments and houses. I found two larger properties on ownersdirect.co.uk, the numbers are 8150913 and 8163990. On residencestresa.com, there are three self-contained apartments together in the town centre that would accommodate up to 11 people. Send your travel queries to jscales@irishtimes.com