July 10, 2023 - Germany
Fly to London
We left Berlin from the relatively new Berlin Brandenburg Airport, on the south side of Berlin. It opened for commercial traffic on 31 October 2020, 14 years after construction started and 29 years after official planning was begun! It is named after the former West Berlin mayor and West German chancellor Willy Brandt. The new airport replaced Tempelhof, Schönefeld, and Tegel airports, and is now the single commercial airport serving Berlin.
We stayed at a nice hotel which was literally next door to the main terminal. Uber convenient.
After landing, while still on the plane, we received an email notifying that we had were booked on a flight leaving London back to Baltimore tomorrow morning. Cool. So we skipped the big line at the Rebooking desk. Big mistake. We were down in the lower level checking on our luggage when the attendant said, "Oh, you're now scheduled to fly out of here in two days, to Ronald Reagan. What?
To cut to the chase, we managed to change our flight to go direct to Baltimore, but we still had to spend two nights in London. Without our luggage. We didn't even have our carry-on suitcase because British Airways made us check it back in Berlin. We stayed in a relatively inexpensive (for London) hotel near the airport, and learned to use the bus system. We used the extra day to go into London and see some sights. We were tired after our long sightseeing trip to Germany so the last thing we wanted to do was spend two more nights overseas. But, these things happening when you travel. I will say British Airways was good about reimbursing us for the hotel and meals.
