As you know, CF and I recently returned from our vacation in Germany. In addition to saving lots of money on accommodations and a little money on neck pillows, we found the attractions to have very good deals for people with student cards! Thanks to a clerical error before I graduated, my student card expires next month even though I have been graduated for 3 years. Since CF is back in school and also has a valid student card, we took full advantage of the deals! Here are some of the highlights:
Frankfurt
The Städel Museum is one of Frankfurt’s oldest art museums and contains paintings by the likes of Monet, Rembrandt, van Gogh and Picasso. Unfortunately a large portion of the collections were not accessible as the museum is under renovation for expansion. Still, we were able to view the active exhibition, “In Chronological Order: Städel Works of the 14th to 21st Centuries”. I have never viewed art this way and it was really interesting to see the evolution of style over time. I also saw some paintings by Albrecht Durer, whose work is featured in Dan Brown’s most recent novel, The Lost Symbol which I was reading at the time. The student price was only €5 compared to €10 for the adult price.
Berlin
Museums were the best place to take advantage of the student deals. Conveniently, most of the museums in Berlin are centrally located on “Museuminsel” (Museum Island). To visit the Berliner Dom (Berlin’s major cathedral), the Pergamon Museum and the Neues Museum cost less than €25 and we saved 50% off the regular price. The Pergamon was my favorite; it contains a lot of reconstructed ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman architecture. It felt like I was walking through a Social Studies texbook!
We also were able to get a student rate at the Berlin Zoo. It was pretty cool to see a lot of ‘exotic’ animals from Africa, although the enclosures were small and I’m not sure the animals were all that happy. It was kind of sad, and very much a stereotypical zoo environment.
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Taking advantage of the student rates where possible allowed us to see and do more than we thought we would be able to do. The German student rates are extremely generous – North America should take note!
In addition to the major cities, we also spent a few days in the Mosel Valley in the heart of German wine country. To read more about that portion of the trip, check out my wine-themed blog, Tangled Vines.
