Page 147 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide: Great Places to Stay in Europe

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G ERM A NY 14 7147

Shops As a rule, shops open
from 9am–6:30pm Mon–Fri
(some remain open until
8:30pm on Thursdays), and
8:30am–2pm Sat – except for
the first Saturday of each
month, when they open
until 4pm.
Tipping Prices in hotels and
restaurants are always
inclusive of service. You
therefore need leave nothing
extra for room service; in
restaurants it is customary to
add a little to the bill for
service.
Telephoning For calls within
Germany, dial the initial zero
of the area code. To call
Germany from the UK, dial 00
49, then the number, omitting
the initial zero; from the US,
011 49, again without the
initial zero.
Public holidays 1 January;
Good Friday and Easter
Monday; 1 May; Ascension
Day; Whit Monday; Corpus
Christi; 3 October (Unification
Day); 25 and 26 December.
USEFUL WORDS
Bülow Residenz, page 171, a Baroque house in the old part of Dresden
Breakfast Frühstück
OTHER PRACTICAL Many hotels contain top-class Lunch Mittagessen
INFORMATION restaurants where you can eat Dinner Abendessen
even if you are not a resident. Free room? Zimmer frei?
ESERVATIONS SHOULD be Note that it is customary in How much? Wieviel?
R R Rmade as far ahead as some restaurants to share Single room Einzelzimmer
possible, especially during your table with other diners, Double room Doppelzimmer
holiday seasons, and in cities, especially if the table is
which often get fully booked marked Stammtisch. Note also GERMANY PRICE BANDS
in advance for trade fairs that you will be charged for
and popular festivals. These each piece of bread consumed. ERMANY DOES NOT have a
include the Oktoberfest in G G Ghotel classification system
Munich (late September– Language Hochdeutsch, ‘High with star ratings. Instead,
early October), the Cologne German’, is the official hotels and guesthouses are
Carnival (late February–early language, but regional differentiated and described
March) and the Bayreuth dialects, often with strong according to their type –
opera festival (June–July). local accents, are spoken in Hotel Garni, Kur-hotel, Hotel
There has recently been a many areas. Pension, and so on.
move in Germany towards Saxony, Bavaria and Swabia Our price bands, as
environmentally conscious have particularly pronounced elsewhere in the guide, refer
‘eco-tourism’ (Ökotourismus).s local dialects, while Berlin to the price of a standard
Coincidentally, German and Cologne retain their own double room in high season.
hotels and restaurants have ‘city dialects’ which even Breakfast is usually, but not
become more tolerant of visitors from nearby areas always, included in the room
smokers, and are now less may find hard to understand. price. VAT, Mehrwertsteuer, is
prepared to prohibit smoking In the north, Plattdeutsch is always included in the prices
in certain rooms or areas. another regional variation. quoted by hotels.
However, at the other
extreme, some hotels offer Currency From 1 January ¡ under 55 EUR
special Antiallergica rooms, 2002, the European euro ¡¡ 55–105 EUR
for those prone to such (written ‘EUR’), made up of ¡¡¡ 105–160 EUR
allergies as household dust. 100 cents. ¡¡¡¡ over 160 EUR