Derag Hotel Max Emanuel and Hotel Heidelberg in Germany

I led a group of college students on a trip to GERMANY in May ’08. Here is a review of our hotels.

• Derag Hotel Max Emanuel (Rabelstraße 10, 81669 München; phone +49 [0] 89 4 58 30 0, fax 58 30 815, www.deraghotels.de) offered lots of freebies, many more than you’d ever expect from a 3-starred property.

There was free Internet in the lobby, along with coffee and iced tea and fruit. Our rooms offered coffee and tea service as well as daily complimentary bottled water and even, if you can imagine, beer.

The sauna and solarium in the basement were amazingly bright and sunny.

My room, at €89 (near $141), was on a park and had a little balcony. Some rooms faced the street, but the area was residential and quiet.

At night, a little bag of Gummi sheep was placed on my pillow. One student, Allison Barnett, said that she liked the blue rubber ducky in her shower and that her bed was “really comfy.”

Breakfast, included in the price, was an amazing buffet of rolls, breads, cheeses, meats, salads, yogurt, fruit, cereal, eggs and pastries.

The hotel’s only flaws were its stained carpets and that the hallways could be noisy and echo when people came in late at night.

The hotel was given a bad rating on www.TripAdvisorcom. I disagree. I would stay at Derag Hotel Max Emmanuel again.

• In the hotel zone of Berlin, an area filled with cafés, we stayed at the 3-star Hotel Heidelberg (Knesebeckstraße 15, 10623 Berlin; phone +49 [0] 30 313 01 03, fax 313 58 70, www.hotel-heidelberg-berlin.de).

The hotel was a bit creaky and worn. While it was a true 3-star hotel (no freebies here!), the rooms were clean and many had balconies overlooking the city. €59 ($93) included breakfast, which was a nice but smaller version of what we’d enjoyed in Munich.

The ladies who manned the desk were helpful.

• One restaurant that we loved, just two blocks from the Heidelberg, was Pizzeria Amico (phone 030 318 062 70) at the corner of Goethestraße and Grolmanstraße.

I popped in at 7:30 to see if our group could come to dinner at 8. Pedro, the owner, warmly welcomed us and we had a private room with a long table and candles.

The pizzas were crispy and cheesy and topped with all sorts of unusual items like tuna, carrots and shrimp. It cost €7-€10 for a one-person plate-sized pie. The tiramisu and panne cotta were delicious (€6-€8). We ended the meal with a round of complimentary amaretto from the lovely restaurant owner.

Student Kathy Reece wanted to return and eat dinner there again because “It was the best restaurant of the trip!”

JENNIFER EISENLAU

Longmont, CO