Fashion Week Returns to Berlin

It’s perhaps no surprise that twice a year the great and good of the fashion world choose the city of Berlin to descend upon in order to hold their celebration of chic. Berlin has long been seen as ‘poor but sexy’, undeniably a Mecca for unbridled creativity and adventure, virtues essential to the constant innovation required at the top level of fashion design.

The marriage between Berlin and Fashion Week has actually only existed for 6 years, since 2007, so it’s not as well known or well established as the ‘big four’ (London, Milan, Paris, NYC). Still, Berlin offers a platform to many young and exciting designers flourishing here, and for that reason it stands out and garners a lot of attention. In this spirit, Fashion Week features a young international talent and a ‘Designer for Tomorrow’ award, adjudicated by a jury containing non other than Marc Jacobs, among others.

The main event, so to speak, takes place on the beautifully historic “Straße des 17. Juni”, right in front of the Brandenburg Gate. A packed and exciting schedule is in the offering, and you can find all you need to know about what’s on at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week website.

But there are all kinds of other exciting events taking place, and Lufthansa is very proud to be involved. Bread & Butter is an internationally famous and hugely important trade fair for street and urban wear, which takes place at Tempelhof airport – a location with its own unique history and a breathtaking building in its own right. Bread & Butter has been going since 2001 and has since become one of the main events on the fashion calendar, with world-famous designers and fashion houses singing its praises. It’s a piece of heaven on earth for lovers of style and trends, and if you’re in town, it’s not to be missed!

Take a look at the ‘flights’ section of the Bread & Butter website and you’ll notice that Lufthansa is proud to be the official airline partner of the event! If you’re interested in travelling to Berlin for this fantastic coming together of designers, brands and fans of fashion, Lufthansa is very pleased to be able to offer special flight deals to participants, visitors, invited guests and exhibitors all making their way to the German capital. So be sure to take a look at the website if you’re planning to make the pilgrimage to fashion heaven!

 And where there’s fashion, there are, of course, parties! Last night’s Bread & Butter opening party set the bar for the coming nights with performances by punk icon Nina Hagen and techno pioneer Sven Väth. Now the city’s most reputable nightspots are getting in on the party, and you can expect to see some of the world’s greatest DJs and other acts in the world’s greatest clubs. Berghain will be running its Klubnacht on Friday night (18th Jan) with special guest and toast of the electronic music world Joy Orbison, while on Saturday night they welcome DJ royalty Âme and Nick Höppner in the Panorama Bar. Weekend club is holding its own Fashion Week opening party on Wednesday the 16th. The official Bread & Butter party hotspot, however, is another icon of Berlin chic and style: West Berlin’s legendary Big Eden. So bring your dancing shoes and expect a night out like you’ve never experienced before!

Even if you’re just remotely interested in the ever-changing world of fashion, this is most definitely the place to be! So let Lufthansa chauffeur you to Berlin and become a part of the citywide party that’s not to be missed! Let’s go, darling!

Show photo © Mercedes-Benz Fashion
All other photos © breadandbutter.com

2012 - It Was A Very Good Year…!

As 2012 draws to a close, let’s take a look back over a great year, and pick our favorite travel destinations and tips that we talked about over the last 12 months. What was your favorite trip of the year? Did you discover somewhere new that really changed your life? We certainly hope so, and we hope to keep broadening our horizons for many years to come!Perhaps the biggest event of the year was the London 2012 Olympic games, and what a games it was! We suggested that you enjoy London like a real English gent, and make time between sporting events for a nice and relaxing stroll through one of London’s many beautiful parks. As the coverage of the Games rolled on, you might have noticed that, contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t rain in the UK all the time, and taking in a bit of afternoon sunshine while you amble around Hyde Park, for example, is a great way to get a feel for a great city. But London is a fantastic place all year round, there’s so much to see and always so much going on. So if you weren’t lucky enough to get to London this summer, there’s always next year!We also welcomed a little spice of India to our somewhat unreliable Berlin summer, in the shape of the fantastically colorful Holi Festival! It was the first time Berlin had hosted its own festival of colors, and despite the rain here in Berlin, it was still a feast for the eyes. The Holi festival is originally a Hindu festival to welcome in the spring by way of throwing colored powder on each other, and it’s great fun. You can experience the real deal by flying to Delhi around the beginning of spring (the exact date of the festival changes every year). Alternatively, a trip to Berlin in the summer is always a good idea! As many people know, Berlin really comes alive in the summer. The winters are very cold indeed, and when the longer daylight hours and warmer weather finally start to arrive, the change in personality of the city is very noticeable. A similar situation exists in New York, and we also recommended seeing the big apple come alive for the summer months. An amazing and breath-taking city at any time of year, New York has captured the hearts and minds of millions the world over. But during the summer, this city really is like no other. We suggested the fascinating USS Intrepid museum on the Hudson River, the Taco Truck in Brooklyn, a ferry trip to see the iconic Statue of Liberty, and so, so much more! A fantastic place with so much to offer, New York was, and probably always will be, one of our very favorite places to visit. When the summer began to fade away, we started thinking about how we could stretch it out just a little bit more. The solution? Go to the southern Hemisphere! Another favorite of ours, South Africa is a remarkable destination that has something for everyone. Whether you’re on a journey of musical discovery in Johannesburg, or keen to learn the incredible story of South African Apartheid at the Apartheid Museum, or maybe see for yourself the stunning landscape and amazing wildlife of the Kruger National Park, it’s easy to see why South Africa left such a huge impression on us. Good news for football fans: next year the African Cup of Nations will be hosted there! So if you’re suffering from a bit of winter blues, it’s a great time to cheat Mother Nature and get some southern hemisphere sunshine! A little closer to the spiritual home of Lufthansa, we told you about the delights of the Bavarian capital and suggested you meet us in Munich. Yes, everybody knows about the world famous Oktoberfest, but we were keen to show you the other facets of this great city in southern Germany. We love the architecture of Munich, and also its vibrant nightlife scene, but we’re also very fond of its cultural offerings, like the Ingvild Goetz collection and the ‘Kult-Kino’ of the Museum Lichtspiele. And, of course, we couldn’t resist a nod to Germany’s most successful football team, FC Bayern Munich, and their stunning home ground, the Allianz Arena. A city that is as rich in culture as it is in heritage, Munich will always have a place in our hearts, and is always a great place to visit. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, we loved telling you all about Rio de Janeiro, and in particular, the carnival! What a spectacle! What unbelievable fun! The parade, the balls, the dancing, the colors, the music… What a fantastic city! But we didn’t just love the carnival; we loved the landscape of the Cidade Maravilhosa, or marvelous city, the breath-taking view from the statue of Christ the Redeemer, and we really loved the beaches! But most of all, the laid back atmosphere of the Rio and its citizens is what we’re most fond of. Rio really is a truly special destination that captivates anybody lucky enough to pay a visit.

What a year it has been! All corners of the globe have something unique and special to offer, and it’s so hard to pick our favorites. We hope we’ve given you that spark of inspiration to embark on a voyage of discovery and experience what this remarkable world has to offer. And wherever you’re planning to go next year let Lufthansa help you along the way. We wish you a 2013 full of inspiration, of magical experiences and incredible journeys. 

Some Great News From Lufthansa!

To keep up with ever-increasing demand, we’re extremely pleased to announce several expansions to our services, not only to our flights within Germany, but also to international destinations!

Starting this winter, we’ll be offering hourly flights from Frankfurt to Hamburg, Munich and Berlin. And vice versa of course. But that’s not all: At peak times in the mornings and evenings, we’re even offering twice-hourly services on some routes to make sure you can be where you need to be on time, with a minimum of waiting around for a later flight.Furthermore, the response to new flight destinations from Berlin has been so great that we’re planning to add three more destinations this winter. Since September this year, passengers have been able to fly non-stop to the wonderful Moroccan capital Marrakech, as well as Funchal, the capital of Madeira, a beautiful Portuguese island and popular holiday destination (both destinations are also served by Düsseldorf, by the way).For the enthusiastic skiers among you, you’ll be pleased to hear that from mid-December, we’re going to be flying three times a week to Innsbruck, the Tyrolean capital in the Alps. What’s more, Lufthansa will now transport your equipment for free! All passengers (except those travelling to the US or Canada) with a ticket issued on or after 1st June this year are allowed to take a pair of skis or a snowboard with them, free of charge (as well as their free luggage allowance). Lufthansa already flies to a multitude of alpine ski destinations, including Nice, Turin, Geneva, Zurich, Milan, Verona and Salzburg – and, of course, Innsbruck.We’re also introducing an extra connection to Tel Aviv! You can already fly there from Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin, but from 1st November, passengers can also fly direct to this second most populous Israeli city from Düsseldorf, too. That means we now offer a total of twenty-three connections from Germany to Israel and back. 

Passengers wishing to travel to Holland are no longer restricted to only Amsterdam – they can now fly to Rotterdam from Munich. This is another new route for Lufthansa, offering customers a quick and convenient service to the Dutch port city and the important surrounding economic area of The Hague.

Our other big new route that we’re so happy to announce is our service from Munich to Vancouver. Another first for Lufthansa, from next year we will offer a non-stop flight from Munich to the western Canadian city of 2.3 million people, a fantastic city popular not only with business travellers but also tourists and holidaymakers. From 16th May next year, this new route to British Columbia’s largest city will be served daily by an Airbus A330. This means that by next summer Lufthansa will now be able to offer direct flights to ten major cities in North America from our Munich base.Lastly, we’re always pleased to be able to see more of the “Queen of the Air”, the Boeing 747-8. And that’s exactly what we’re doing – alongside the three aircraft of this kind already in service on routes from Frankfurt to Washington, Bangalore and Dehli, we’re also going to offer the 747-8 on flights to Los Angeles. Additionally, Business Class on this young member of the Lufthansa long-haul fleet is equipped with convertible lie-flat beds. There are already six aircraft from our long-haul fleet fitted with these great seats, and we plan to have the entire fleet kitted out with them by 2015.So there you have it – a whole host of improvements and extensions to the Lufthansa flight plan, so whether your trip is for business or you’re off for some alpine adventures, or you need some relief from the cold in a warmer climate, there’s now even more flight possibilities to choose from in order to make your journey as easy and convenient as possible. 

Kein Grund für Trübsal: Ein regnerisches Wochenende in Stockholm

Stockholm, 8°C, Dauerregen! Bloggerin Elisabeth Rank hat sich davon nicht abschrecken lassen und ging für ein Wochenende auf  Entdeckungsreise:

In der kurzen Nacht vor dem Abflug träumte ich von tanzenden Zimtschnecken, sommerlichen Temperaturen sowie handzahmen Elchen. Die Realität sah beim Weckerklingeln um 5 Uhr morgens dann jedoch etwas anders aus, stockfinster und kalt schnupfte Berlin herum, während wir uns von einem Taxi nach Tegel bringen ließen. Nach drei Kaffee schaffte ich es sogar, mir eine Zeitung für den Flieger auszusuchen. Woher dieser Optimismus kam, ich würde im Flugzeug wach bleiben und dann auch noch lesen können, weiß ich aber selber nicht mehr so genau.  Mit einer Süddeutschen Zeitung und meinem im Halbschlaf murmelnden Freund bepackt bestieg ich dann die Lufthansa Maschine.
Das Schöne an Flügen am frühen Morgen ist ja, dass alle leiser zu sein scheinen als sonst, auch bewegen sich Menschen langsamer, sie drängeln nicht und sind seltsamerweise sehr nett und höflich zu einander. Noch schöner als die allgemeine Puscheligkeit ist aber einerseits der kleine Schokoladenbär aus der Lufthansa-Frühstückstüte und der unvergleich großartige Blick, den man auf den Sonnenaufgang hat, wenn man nicht wie ca. 80% der Passagiere einfach schläft. Morgens halb neun begrüßte uns Stockholm dann nach einer guten Stunde Flug mit Nieselregen, Temperaturen um die 8° und WLAN im Airport Express.


Die nächsten 40 Stunden hörte es nicht auf zu regnen, dies tat der Zauberhaftigkeit von Stockholm jedoch nur bedingt Abbruch, meine Strichliste für konsumierte heiße Schokoladen füllt nun beinahe ein ganzes Notizbuch und wirklich, man sollte seinen Stockholm-Besuch nicht vom Wetter abhängig machen. Die Highlights unserer 40 Stunden in der schwedischen Hauptstadt habe ich hier für euch nun zusammengefasst:

Top 3 - Essen & Trinken

Hermans: In einem kleinen Wintergarten auf Södermalm kann man sich ganz wunderbar den kalten Bauch mit warmen Köstlichkeiten vollschlagen. Einmal fürs Buffet bezahlt, sind dem vegetarisch und veganen Appetit keine Grenzen mehr gesetzt. Und obwohl man schon einen ganz wundervollen Blick auf den Hafen von Stockholm sowie den Vergnügungspark Gröna Lund hat, schieben einen die liebevoll verzierten Kuchen und Törtchen noch ein Stück näher an den Himmel heran.

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No Need to be Glum: A Rainy Weekend in Stockholm

Sweden can be rainy sometimes, but that doesn’t effect us. We’ve sent blogger Elisatbeth Rank to Sweden to spend a weekend there and to explore Stockholm’s charming autumn.
During the all-too-short night before my flight, I dreamed of dancing cinnamon pastries, summer temperatures and tame Elks. The reality, as I woke to the sound of the alarm clock at five in the morning, looked pretty different. The darkness and cold sniffed around the streets of Berlin as we got into a taxi to Tegel airport. It took three coffees until I could just about manage to choose a newspaper to read on the plane. With an unexplained bout of optimism, I decided to stay awake during the flight so that I could read. With my “Süddeutsche Zeitung” newspaper and my half-asleep, mumbling friend, we boarded the Lufthansa plane.
The great thing about flying early in the morning is that everybody seems to be much quieter than usual; the people move slowly and don’t push and shove. Considering we’re at an airport, they’re uncharacteristically nice and polite to one another.  Even better than the general mood of sleepiness is the chocolate bear from the Lufthansa breakfast pack and the incomparably amazing view you get of the sunrise, if you can stay awake, unlike around 80% of the other passengers on the flight. At half-past eight, after an hour-long flight, Stockholm greeted us with drizzling rain, temperatures of 8°C and WLAN in the Airport Express.It didn’t stop raining for the next 40 hours, and so the magic of Stockholm was somewhat limited. My tally of hot chocolates drunk was a page long, and I guess you could say that you really shouldn’t make a trip to Stockholm and depend on the weather. The highlights of our 40 hours in the Swedish capital have been complied for you here:

Top 3 – Food & Drink

Hermans: In a small conservatory in the Södermalm district, you can remedy that cold tummy with some excellent warm delicacies. Once you’ve paid for the buffet, the vegetarian and vegan appetite knows no boundaries. Even though you already have a beautiful view over the Stockholm harbour and the “Gröna Lund” theme park, the lovingly decorated cakes and cupcakes are step even closer to heaven.

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Live like a local - Wherever you go

Chances are, as a reader of this blog, you enjoy traveling. You like seeing new places and meeting new people – we surely do. And we often found that the best spots, the best stores, the best parties and the best drinks are not featured in your everyday travel guide. These are the spots that new local friends direct you to, the truly great bakery they can recommend from their everyday lives, the small gallery hidden in a narrow alleyway, or the cool new bar a friend of a friend just opened.

We turned this discovery into an app for our Facebook fans: SceneSpotter is a social insider travel guide for Lufthansa destinations all over Europe. Using SceneSpotter, you can easily find original stores, delicious local specialties, and awesome playgrounds for kids as well as hip and loud playgrounds for adults. Locals from Paris, Berlin, Bologna and many other European cities will fill you in on the best ways to spend your precious time.

Use SceneSpotter to plan an artsy tour through Barcelona, a Reykjavík weekend with your friends or a romantic getaway to Paris. Store your plans, share them with friends – and of course add your own discoveries and favorite spots! 

And now that you can tap into the knowledge of locals, why not really live like one? In cooperation with Airbnb, SceneSpotter lets you book rooms and apartments in your city of choice – no hotel bed or crowded hostel cell, but actual rooms in actual neighborhoods.

We’re excited to offer a travel guide that really caters to your interests and shows you the sweet spots of European cities. And we’re equally excited to see the tips and recommendation you are going to add. SceneSpotter is destined to grow – join now and be a part of it! 

All eyes on Berlin: ITB Berlin 2012

Once again, the world’s largest tourism trade fair opens the gates for trade visitors and the travelling general public. Since ist beginnings in 1966, the ITB Berlin has evolved into an important forum for airlines, tour operators, hotel companies and all providers of tourism services – and for customers and travellers interested in the latest developments and offers.

After an interval of three years, Lufthansa will once again be a part of the ITB. With our own redesigned stand close to the tourism industry we want to present new offers and products. We will show what new and exciting developments the opening of the Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport will bring for Lufthansa, for travel agencies, and for travellers alike.

Come visit us at ITB Berlin for a profound look into Lufthansa’s ideas for 2012 – and for a first glimpse of our latest seat versions, including the new Business Class seat. You will find us in exhibition hall 25. We’re looking forward to meeting you!