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Alpen-Karawanserai (Hinterglemm) with a bit of Venice

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chff:
I’m not the type to write a TR, but as someone that I come here to get info and I didn’t see any TR about this place I will try to write up a TR.

Trip Basics: Flight NY to Munich - 6 nights in Hiterglemm, Austria - drive to Venice - 2 nights in Venice - Flight back home

Outbound flight: All I needed was business class non-stop NY to MUC so I can get some sleep to be able to drive to Hinterglemm (about 3 hours’ drive). United showed award on LH411 departing JFK at 5:40pm arriving Munich 7:55am for 70k miles + $5.60 (which I paid using my CSR which earns 3 points as travel, yielding a total of 16.8 Chase UR points, equivalent to about 35 cents, according to TPG’s latest valuations). I really wanted the later flight, which when it opened 2 weeks later & I paid $125 (per ticket) to switch, LH 413 departing EWR at 8:45pm arriving Munich 10:30am. (both LH 411 & LH 413 on that day were 3 class acft J/W/Y - no first class)

Car: Needed a one-way cross-country European rental, which doesn’t come cheap… a basic search showed me Hertz as the only reasonable option, plus it had a “proper” Venice branch. Booked a Full-Size car (BMW 3er Aut. - GPS or similar) for 165€ base, 163€ taxes & 450€ One-Way drop fee. (Used Amex Plat CDP). (Price was the same for return at the airport or Piazzale Roma)

Hotel - Austria: Based on many feedback from other people we settled for Alpen-Karawanserai (Hotel’s website - www.alpen-karawanserai.at & Kosher Site www.kosher-hotel.at). The program is run by the hotel’s owner itself (not a tour operator) and they have a Heimesh Lady as the booking contact. Email didn’t turn out to be the best form of communication, so my wife made some phone calls, back & forth regarding dates & rooms (they have a min 7 nights after Tisha B’av) till we got something that worked for us, Deluxe Room with Balcony for 6 nights, rate 450€ per night for 2 + 1,70€ village tax per person per night. Their rates are non-refundable, but they offered me to hold the room for 3 days while I confirmed my fights etc

Hotel - Venice: While I could have booked basically any SPG/Marriot hotel with points, I decided to stay close to Chabad (for easy access to food/Minyan), so based on rate & room type I booked the La Palazzina Veneziana (Which is more like a B&B) - Superior Double Room, Terrace, Canal View for 199,80€ per night.

Return Flight: While my wife wanted to catch the first flight home from VCE, I wanted to do it more exotic….. Had my eye on the EK MXP>JFK flight. EK’s site kept on erroring out when I tried to search availability, but I knew it was wide open as all 14 seats were available for sale. Tried my contacts by EK, and they told me I should do a waitlist, (didn’t know EK allowed). Called up and made a waitlist reservation. Kept on checking a few times a day till it finally cleared (EK didn’t email me that it cleared) and I got it ticketed (85k and $294.71 in taxes). I booked their Chauffeur service home from JFK & from Stazione Milano Centrale to MXP airport. I then booked on ItaliaRail (Trenitalia) a business class seat from Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia to Stazione Milano Centrale on Frecciarossa 9724 for $76 per person.

chff:
Link to the Summer 2018 Program - http://kosher-hotel.at/summer-program/
I have attached the price sheet

sam28:
Any info on the hotel and the places u went ? other then u getting there and back ? any pictures ?

chff:

--- Quote from: sam28 on August 07, 2018, 05:11:40 PM ---Any info on the hotel and the places u went ? other then u getting there and back ? any pictures ?

--- End quote ---

TR will continue

chff:
And finally, the day arrived. We packed up, picked up some food for supper and headed out to Newark airport. Check-in was quick (somehow my suitcase weighted 31.7kg - I didn’t check the weight beforehand….) passed thru security (EWR doesn’t have yet TSA PreCheck) and sat in the lounge (ate the food I bought in Brooklyn) till boarding. LH Business Lounge is kinda small (Shared with Swiss as well) and was pretty full, like every seat taken. The windows from the lounge is where the arriving passengers head to customs, and just then LY arrived…  the Flight posted a bit of a delay, (Like 30 minutes) at boarding time we exited the lounge and headed to the gate and boarded the Aircraft. I had a look at the registration and looked that up, was nice to see that the aircraft was pretty new, 32 days to be exact….



Lufthansa 413
Newark (EWR) > Munich (MUC)
Monday, July 23
Depart: 9:02PM
Arrive: 10:56AM +1
Duration: 7hr54min
Aircraft: Airbus A350-900
Seat: 08H/08K (Business Class)



We sat down in our seats & settled in for our flight. The seats were angled in the same direction (towards the window) vs their 747-8 where its angled towards each other. First time flying the A350 and it was very good. Right after the first drink service I lowered my seat and went to sleep, while my wife did eat dinner (From Regal, a dinner tray + a separate dessert tray. Food was pretty fresh and good). After a few hours sleep I woke up, davened in my seat & ate the breakfast (A cold meal - from Regal and it was fresh & good).










Flight landed & taxied to the gate in T2 Classic. As I didn’t know if Lufthansa has a welcome lounge in MUC I stopped by a business class lounge to ask, but she ushered me in there. Tried to get shower but was a line (the Welcome lounges have more showers), so just tried to get some coffee (we brought some frozen milk from NY), but they didn’t have disposable cups. So after wasting some time we left and cleared customs (the Passport Control room was empty and the lights were even shut, had to look a minute to see if there was anyone there - don’t know if it’s lighting etc. but it looked deserted) and walked to baggage claim, where I saw I’m the last person to arrive and my luggage wasn’t on the belt. Got scared that maybe took off with my stuff, so I headed to the baggage claim office. There was a long line, but by the entrance there was a machine that printed ticket numbers and I took one. The next number to be called was me, given that all waiting in line didn’t take a ticket…… The agent checked and told me the news that my bags were offloaded in EWR for some reason but said that it might be in MUC as they have 3 systems, and each might be saying a different story (a different agent walked in & said an entire container was removed or was offloaded in MUC late, so we both went to check the belt again but no more bags showed up). He created a delayed baggage claim and gave me 2 “Overnight kits” - basically an oversized amenity kit with the Star Alliance logo (not LH). We left, got some coffee by a kiosk and walked to the car rental area, all companies had long lines, but I had a Hertz Gold Canopy reservation, so I headed to the parking lot, took the elevator to the 6th floor and headed to my assigned bay.

Renting a Germany deserves a good German car, I was disappointed to see a Nissan X-Trail SUV in my bay, and the vehicle was dirty, filthy dirty, the center console was sticky and wasn’t cleaned a bit. I asked the attendant if they can clean it, and he said no, and if I wanted a different vehicle I would have to go to the office which was a 5+ minute walk back & an hour wait so I had to forgo on that. He marked the Damage report “Das Auto ist Schmutzig”. My wife cleaned a bit with some wipes we had, I setup my phone/Waze and headed out. At the exit I gave a free-day coupon I had, so he deducted 35€ for that plus another 40€ for the “Schmutzigkeit”, and we were on the way. (I later saw in the rental papers that Hertz doesn’t allow Mercedes & BMWs in Italy - guess that’s the reason I didn’t get that)





The way from MUC to Hinterglemm is about 3 hours, about 90 minutes in Germany on Highways, and crossing into Austria another 90 minutes on country roads. The Autobahn had pretty much traffic, hardly had stretch that didn’t have a posted limit, so couldn’t enjoy that. Another tidbit I picked up by a rest area - for whomever is not aware - Many places charge money to use the restroom. The turnstile only accepted cash or “contactless”, I had no Euro cash, and Google Pay on my phone worked fine. And so was anywhere in Germany/Austria - never pulled out my card, everywhere I was able to pay with my phone, which also helps that I didn’t have to sign any receipts. We called the hotel ahead & asked where we can buy some clothing, and they advised we should stop by Zell Am See, which is the closest town to Hinterglemm. After some Googling we went to H&M and purchased some emergency clothing and headed to the hotel.



Small note - Waze had the speed limits pretty bad, but the in-car GPS (which was way outdated) displayed it correctly by my speedometer. I really hope I have no tickets headed my way…

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