Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Where London affordable gourmet fare offers.

Not too expensive, the finest cuisine, London. This phrase seems to name the city simply does not fit. But recently several chefs offer the English capital in their second meal of exquisite restaurants - and at affordable prices.

 


London - Very ungracious ruled England Gastro-King Gordon Ramsay on the food given to him as a guest of the Queen was finally prefixed: "Complete rubbish" was reluctant to translate his comments. Better that English cuisine has to offer, he leads a day in his own kingdom before? as a luxury version in the restaurant "Gordon Ramsay" and "Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, raised in the civil context in" Maze, "" Maze Grill, "" Foxtrot Oscar "and" Boxwood Café. "


In addition, he successfully culinary colonialism. Whether in Dubai, New York or Tokyo, Ramsay, the British cuisine for export. The new self-confidence of the British food culture has a whole generation of British chefs infected. In a country where a few years ago, the then Foreign Minister Robin Cook Chicken Tikka massala to the National Court declared that serve young chefs today with pride in local products delightful modern interpretations.


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Also Anthony Demetre and Will Smith, in London's Soho district has already successfully passed the French-oriented restaurant "Arbutus" result. For his British cuisine, the duo in a spin-off City a better environment.

With Eichenholztäfelung, brown and sludge-colored cushion benches and coarsely woven brown mats instead of white table linen seems to be the "Wild Honey", but only at first glance a gastropub to be the food supply extends far beyond actual pubs format also. Above all, the quality of products and their presentation convincing.


Trend toward second restaurant


An attractive appetizers is the Red-beet salad with fresh ricotta cheese British sheep, honey and lemon-thyme vinaigrette. Pink grapefruit and hazelnuts make the velouté Biokarotten from the original temptation, and the variation of rabbits accompany pleasantly spicy wild mushrooms and figs. From the wine list? predominantly upper middle class from France, Italy and Germany? Almost all positions are also open poured.


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As in the case of "Wild Honey" is a trend in many places to second restaurant for authentic cuisine a separate stage to offer. Gordon Ramsay and Tom Aikens (Tom Aikens, Tom's Kitchen "), which temporarily have a fish & chips shop operation, have it Now, the gentlemen to follow and well liked.

Accordingly, also the French-inspired "Pied à Terre" explicitly a second leg created in "L'Autre Pied requires chef Marcus Eaves entirely on British bases, although the atmosphere with the delicate flower paintings on the wall glazed Asian accents rather suggests and the red leather benches and chairs black Diner's extensive look evoke.

Such stylistic freedoms is also the cook out: the cancer of the Salcombe Bay in Devon requires a delicate wafer aufgeschäumte Zaziki mousse, which he sets out on guinea fowl bulgur, exactly has the right bite. Similar courage the wine list with artefacts from all over the world, such as a garage Riesling Mac Forbes from Victoria or the Australian Blaufränkisch of Pitt Auer from Burgenland.

Even "The Anchor & Hope, London's favorite among the gastropubs, has teamed up with the" Great Queen Street, a sort of bistro on the British side. Unconventional and the service is warm, clear and straightforward, what he referred to the light wood tables presents: Pleasant proper Cornwall-taste the crab on toast, white beans with garlic pistou are hearty, and the Hereford beef is abundant allocated, whether as a minute steak or the rib.


Young clientele with a good mood


Eating in such a framework is not as celebrated at court, but rather by the people celebrated. This can be quite loud sometimes fail, so a warning to all sensitive ears: The noise level in the "Great Queen Street is in the" The Establishment "is still exceeded. Front Bar and Bistro are located, is located behind the restaurant? the good mood of the young clientele, but permeates the old brick house opposite the subway station Parsons Green totally.

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The interior is very is trimmed to the Seventies: pop-art-wallpaper on the wall, brown designer armchair Chen, calmer light gray-white clarity of the good office behind it. The card offers a bistro style aufgepeppten, such as rabbit terrine with parsley sour pickled carrots and homemade sourdough bread, as a light main course, a roasted fillet of Brass domestic coast chorizo lentils, and wild garlic. The final alternative is an excellent piece of rib Aberdeen Angus with fries and sauce Béarnaise.

The "establishment" is not an offshoot, however, there has emerged from the young guard Neil Mackenzie first on his own responsibility in the kitchen asked. Such a lead role in Tom Pemberton "Hereford Road," with which he is after his time in the city famous "St. John Bread and Wine" self-made. The recipe for success, he then states: uncomplicated English courts. Butterzart braised lamb with turnips or some delicious desserts like apple pie or rice pudding with plums? simple but good.

Also, the frame fits, just a typical neighborhood pub in Notting Hill with an open kitchen to small semicircular niches in the entrance. The actual dining room is a sort of sunken garden house in the daylight through a glass ceiling round penetrates. Even the chef's imports are happy with the quality of the English ingredients inspired.

Philip Vogel and Christian Rosse, a student of Dieter Müller and chefs in the restaurant "Andaman" in the new elegant Althoff Hotel St James's, are particularly excited by the meat, which they get in England. The fact that they know to use it, prove it with tender lamb chops with red pepper marmalade and aromatic garlic foam. Ginger jelly to tuna, pea puree with shrimp? calculated scatter the New London more British elements in their Amuse Bouche menu. This would even the Queen and Gordon Ramsay impressed.

Moscow's flirtation with the West.

Latte Macchiato take tea from the samovar, the western influence in Moscow has left many traces. Nor is the Soviet legacy still ubiquitous - for example in the Baker buildings in the Stalin Mausoleum, or in the magnificently equipped Metro.

 


Moscow - The F looks like a stroke with two ears. The H stands for N, P for a rolled R. It must be used in Moscow, because without at least minimal knowledge of Cyrillic is the orientation in the Russian capital difficult. But that's the biggest hurdle.
Moscow - which had also many years after the end of the Iron Curtain and Soviet domination after a third-world sounds, can be used for Western Europeans are astonishingly familiar. It is like a piece of the west in the distance - you can see from bureaucratic and incomprehensible caprioles menus once.

Alone in Moscow? Without a rented bus and German leaders to explore the city? Get lost because umgedeuteter Ps and Hs not in the streets and metro maze? And how do you get to the afternoon coffee and ballet tickets, when the Russian's own vocabulary to "Spasibo" and "poshalsta" - "thank you" and "please" - limited, most of Moscow but hardly speak English? Can you imagine in the city to move freely? Yes, you can do everything - and very good, provided you have a proper guide and a good map.

The cityscape is the first beautiful women. They are large, elegant, and they wear shoes with daring high heels. Typical of Moscow are the wide streets - deadfall is probably the more appropriate expression, as they shared the city into tangible appetizers. For the Edelmeile Twerskaja the houses were in the thirties meters far behind the Soviets wanted to have more space.

These main roads have something good, because they offer guidance strangers. Visitors also learn fast: Planning in the course of further exploring a road to cross, they should immediately find the closest subway choose - because it may come quickly no second chance. The eight, sometimes ten deadfall so easy to cross, is the face of some three million cars, the crazy speed drive, pure suicide.

Moscow is ring-shaped structure, the innermost circle consists of mainly the Kremlin and Red Square. On the second circle, the Boulevard Ring, to get to major attractions such as Christ the Savior Cathedral or the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the long lost, legendary treasure of Troy shows. Within this ring, there are more than enough for a week to discover.


Souvenir photo on the Red Square


The tour leads sooner or later to the Red Square. Groups of tourists gather here to see flags held high. A bride and groom, chauffeured by a white stretch limousine, kissing in front of the red-green-white-gold and almost oriental-looking Basil's Cathedral for a souvenir photo. Uniformed guard the marble Lenin mausoleum, which - smooth and straight - from the ornate Kremlin walls as a foreign body effect. He is against the gum at the end of the 19th Century-built luxury department store. In the galleries have Western luxury brand like Dior or Cartier prestigious retail outlets.


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Friday, March 20, 2009

In the realm of the dead.

Only a few feet below the streets of Paris lies a mass grave. The bones of six million dead are stacked in the catacombs - once because of hunger and plague at the cemeteries of the place was short. Even today sometimes done strange things in the city.

 


Paris - The empire of death is almost thirty feet below the city. "Stay is," warns an inscription at the entrance to the ossuary, where the human remains of six million Parisians are aufgeschichtet. Bone to bone, very evenly. In the weak light down there and see the bones at first glance like a wall.

The charnel house under the 14 District is only a small part of the underground tunnels, which are far below the sewers under the electricity and gas lines and the subway shafts to a second Paris paste.

"All Paris is undermined," says Laure Urgine, which leads through the catacombs. "It's like a Swiss cheese." Since the Middle Ages there was the broken limestone, for the housing was used for the facades of Paris is so typical. Especially on three areas of several districts focused underground passages, which are several kilometers long and sometimes just as lost as the streets above.

Again and again plunged his houses and half the streets, as Urgine narrates. Therefore, the City of the quarries towards the end of the 18th Century and established a separate authority, which until today at the safety of the tunnel running.


People choked on the smell putrefaction


At that time, the ossuary at the Place Denfert-Rochereau created, hunger and disease because the people en masse dahinrafften and no more space for more deaths in the Paris cemetery was. Around the largest municipal cemetery, the cemetery of the innocents ", was the smell of putrefaction so bad that residents were faint and even stifled, it is told.


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Champs-Elysees and Notre Dame? Of this, everyone has already heard. ENA, METEOR and cataphiles? Now? S even more difficult. How well do you know the capital of the country's most popular travel the world? Test your knowledge in the large Paris-quiz!

Today will see the catacombs quite peacefully, they are among the most popular attractions of Paris. Hundreds of meters long, extend the underground passages in the south of the city, just so high that it can stand upright.

The longest bone is accurate aufgeschichtet, one on the other. All half-meter follows a series of skulls, arranged as a decorative band. Sometimes one sees on the man-sized bone wall. Behind it is the rest of the bones of millions of gravel, small bones, broken skulls, meters away is the right and left of the aisles to the rear inside.

Regarding the mysterious underworld is also a German raid shelters. "Resting", "smoking" and "backyard" is in the tunnels under the Sixth District, the German occupiers during the war to acquire the property. Elsewhere is a miniature replica of the port of Mahon, hewn into the stone: A soldier, on the Mediterranean island of Minorca against the English had fought, and after his return from captivity in the quarries worked, chiseled from the fortress Mahón from memory in the Stein.

Nowadays young people penetrate into the tunnels, to secret party to celebrate - or deep below the earth film. A few years ago highlighted the police under the old Cinematheque at the Palais Chaillot a regular cinema, with chairs, screen and sound system was equipped.

To make the hustle and bustle there is not degenerate, there are now even "Cataflics" - a separate unit of the Capital Police, which is similar to "Katabullen translate it. Incidentally, when the investigators returned the next day to prevent illegal cinema to admit, everything was gone: The operator had wind of it and get their material together with a trace of them made.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Cult to currywurst.

The icon of German culture Buden chips will be a monument to: mid-August in the capital, opened the first German Currywurst Museum. The future director wants all the dimensions of the sausage light, will help her Berlin star chefs.

 


Berlin - The currywurst belongs to such as Hertha BSC Berlin, Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Bear. At hundreds of stalls and refreshment stands will be in town the sausage in the Würztunke sold - up from Kreuzberg Charlottenburg, up from Marzahn Mariendorf. And also the official inventor of the ingeniously simple court was a Berliner. Reason enough for a small private initiative, Germany's number one snack at last to put a monument on 16 Of August in Berlin the first German Currywurst Museum.

"Our goal is to provide all aspects of the currywurst to light," says the cultural sociologist and director-designate of the museum, Birgit Breloh, at the presentation of the approach on Wednesday. After all, Germany would be in 800 million per year curry sausages eaten. "This means that in every minute curry sausages verspeist 1500." Moreover, the currywurst more than a symbol of Berlin. "There is so much to tell."

Located near the Checkpoint Charlie, on an area of 1100 square meters, the building manager, a trendy, colorful panorama, which literally makes the sausage goes: In a snack bar make accessible the visitors with all necessary utensils acquaintance. On tables are listening in the form of ketchup bottles set up in which celebrities love their currywurst to explain.

Stylized sauce drops hanging from the ceiling, sausage sofas invite you to linger, and a sauce track runs through the exhibition. "The secret of currywurst is in the sauce, which we have taken as a guiding principle," says Stefan Weil Markgraph by the Agency, which has the concept of co.


Sausages Curry of star chefs


A cinema will give it with scenes from the television series like "Three ladies from the grill", a spice and its own board room for Herta Heuwert, the official inventor of the Currywurst. According to legend, stood on a rainy evening in September 1949 in their snack wagon in American occupied the western part of Berlin in the legs and belly began to out of pure boredom, spices and tomato puree zusammenzurühren.

The result was the "Chillup sauce, a curry sauce which they served with Brühwursten - the first currywurst the world, a reference to the steak with ketchup, the U.S. soldiers ate and so happy until the postwar occupation in Germany was completely unknown .

Naturally, the museum also on the "Currywurst-war" between Berlin and Hamburg to the actual authorship of which, says the director-designate Breloh. But the Invention of the Currywurst in Berlin was the best historical evidence.

And of course, the visitors are also a lot of curry sausages can eat. Berlin's star chefs Thomas Kammeier and Kolja Kleeberg mixte extra for the museum's own sauces together. In addition, there are several variants of the German regions, as well as vegetarian sausages and even a composition with gold leaf.

With big gains the initiators of the museum currywurst not. "We take the more athletic," said curator Martin Löwer. "It is a funny and an interesting theme." About 20 friends and fans currywurst, the 54-year-old business consultant for the project. Around 50 million euros, the group had the museum cost.

To the encouragement of visitors to the organizers not afraid: Around 350,000 visitors are expected the museum annually. "I already have a source on the folder full of requests from school groups from Sweden and America," says Breloh. Certainly this was the craziest idea of his life been committed Löwer. But he seems so very happy: "I had a lot of serious ideas, but for which nobody has been so interesting as this one."

Marion Meyer-Radtke, AFP

Monday, March 16, 2009

24 hours Berlin, Berlin.

A day in the metropolitan jungle: Melanie of Marschalck reporter sets out on her personal Berlin Marathon. From design trendsetters on the basement galleries, a delicious steak to the city for the regeneration in the wellness temple - blogs TV gives tips for Ultrakurztrip.

 


Photo: Getty Images
Video: TV blogs


Berlin, 14 clock: Melanie of Marschalck breaks to 24 hours to the German capital to explore. Her first tip: take a taxi for the short distance unit for 3.50 Euro.

The blogs-TV reporter saunters through the design shops in the Hackesche Höfe, the typical berlin accommodation middle plate and can be of gallery owner and actor Thorsten Hinze the stars and the importance for his "Seven Star Gallery declare. The supposedly "tasty schnitzel in Berlin" verspeist Friedrichshain them in a restaurant.

At Sundowner Marschalck in Kreuzberg enjoys the prospect of the glitter of the city and can be used in Clärchens Ballhaus on the floor lead. From dancing in Friedrichshain recovered it the next morning with a sumptuous breakfast in Schöneberg and a subsequent stay at the spa Liquidrom.

My conclusion after 24 hours in Berlin: "Have fun, little sleep."

Friday, March 13, 2009

Marijuana for the ears.

Trip-Hop, Britpop, soul and funk as Liverpool for the Beat generation of the sixties, is Bristol's music scene today. 50 live bands in small clubs bring every night the old port city on the wings.

 


People love das A two hour concert, the band Sheelanagig in "Jesters Comedy Club" now behind him, a difficult tour de force by Eastern European folklore and earthy rock, and at the end they finally bring the Polish Drinking Song "Skotchne", the Join awaited song.

From wild ecstasy spins the piece down into an offense lyres, the band members are as volltrunken on stage boards fall, the audience also goes into the squat, only violinist Aaron Catlow is still playing, is quieter, very quietly, some women giggle . And then, after a moment of silence, the explosion - band and audience jumping to its feet, the Grand Finale, noisy transition into thunderous applause.


"The music scene in Bristol is unbelievable play here every night about 50 excellent live bands," says Tony Benjamin, 55, music journalist in the city of Venue magazine and organizer of the "Jazz Lounge" at the annual music festival in nearby Glastonbury. "Except as London is not a city on the island to keep pace."


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With approximately 415,000 inhabitants of Bristol has a convenient size, they come to walk quickly from pub to pub, with the car is one in a quarter in the lush green of the counties of Gloucestershire and Somerset. The rivers Avon and Frome meet together in Bristol, and from the port is on the Bristol Channel out into the Atlantic and into the world.

From the late 16th Century the city became rich through trade in African slaves, in terms such as Blackboy Hill and Jamaica Street sounds dark chapter today. The merchant Edward Colston earned in the 17 Century a fortune and donated generously to schools, churches and charitable organizations - money that can become a significant part of human trafficking has generated. The controversy over his position is incubating in Bristol's history continues, and it is not the last named after him Colston Hall Concert Hall, with her name repeatedly into the air blowing embers.


From Rachmaninoff to Roxy Music


"They now enter the autobiography of Marianne Faithfull," says Graeme Howell wink, he is the director of the Colston Hall and his voice has the timbre of a proud people, every day of his working week in a modern myth spends.

In this corridor, they have so after a 1966 concert of the Stones hit, Mick Jagger and the girls, their romance is history. The Colston Hall, 1867 opening, has a history, and it sounds like a confused list of the musical elite of the last century: Sergei Rachmaninov has also sat on the grand piano like Oscar Peterson, Bob Dylan was hailed here and Bob Marley, the Beatles have here and rocked Roxy Music, Ella Fitzgerald has sung and Elton John.

But the best time is always now, the latest star polish the luster of the Colston Hall anew, today there are artists like the singer Martha Wainwright and the English band "Goldfrapp", the fresh wind into the stage curtain bring. Renewed these days even the house itself, the concert will be completely overhauled.

"For classical music is the great room, but you hear yes, the Hall is much too strong," lamented Howell and slaps on the stage, according to the hands, stumbles immediately after the echo. "The black fabric on the walls, we have appropriate than 'Motörhead' the last time played, which insulates at least a little, and finally each year. When such music disturbs the Hall yet."

It is not the sound in the hall of a famous British band from carrying out here to play, but the reverberation of the name Colston, the slave trader. "Massive Attack" is the band, they refused to sheer historical outrage, and it comes from - Bristol.

Early nineties, a new musical style, an amalgam of lasziv abrasive beats and dark electronic music, sweet-heavy marijuana for the ears, and the appearance of Drogentrip and Hip-hop gave the trend a name: As a trip-hop conquered the Bristol Sound "the World, he breathed the wanderlust of the old port city, once from the sailing ships in the world went, and he was rooted in soul and reggae, whose origins go back to the black continent.


Finster, such as the mud in the Avon


One of the great exponents of this new style include "Massive Attack", her album "Blue Lines" is for electronic music, which Miles Davis' "Kind Of Blue" for the Jazz was a milestone, a classic from day one. And indeed was also the trip-hop forever "kind of blue", sort of melancholy, especially the first albums of the musician Tricky, who for a while with "Massive Attack" cooperated: Tricky aka Adrian Thaws grew up in Knowle West, a socially deprived district Bristol, a good place to be in a poorly lit street corner with a folding knife pierce the spleen and the opportunity to steal the purse to leave.

Here was Tricky 1968 born, father absent, his mother Maxine Quaye brought around, as he spent four was. Your dedicated in 1995 his debut album "Maxinquaye" - dark as the mud at the bottom of the Avon, but sexy as Liz Hurley in lingerie and vibrating with enough compositional strength to Bristol's famous suspension bridge shake it.

It is a popular postcard, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, named after the picturesque district of Clifton, Victorian houses with neat gardens, not a cheap area. Here the sandstone-colored Gothic tower of the Bristol Law School, before it begins gently sloping Park Street, where the lush sophistication Clifton and the youthful freshness of the university district marry.

In low cottages of the 17th and 18 Century kuscheln to book stores, fashion shops and cafes, but after sunset streaks the Park Street on glittering evening dress and shows her otherwise face: The pubs are filled with young, mostly student audience, music and laughter can penetrate into the street, and enjoys all locations the distinctive flower of the British smoking ban: the smirting, a contraction of "smoking" and "flirting".

Monday, March 9, 2009

More heart than snout.

For their niceness Berlin are not exactly known - more for their male charm. With the capital campaign now wants her gruff image. Red Buttons are thousands of policemen, taxi drivers and street sweeper, as they are in performance practice.

 


Berlin - It was the year 1999, the federal government had just moved when the liaison officer from the Ministry of Defense's first experience with the Berliners made. "Good morning," greeted the man-friendly, as it one morning on the bus rose. "I Wollnse muck?", The bus driver growled back.


DPA
Please smile: Berlin decreed kindness


The story is guaranteed, and it belongs to the countless anecdotes that Zugereiste on the charm of the main male urbanites can tell. Gruff, but with heart, is the popular prejudice about Berlin, and "no respect for nobody." It had also recently experienced Michael Glos, the economy minister as access to a venue called, where a state guest waiting for him, and by a policeman with the words stopped, "Det trial is me!"

The government body is the policeman then rolled over his foot, thick headlines were the result, and the makers of millionenteuren image campaign "Be Berlin", the capital since 2008 as a creative and cosmopolitan city is trying to present, is likely once again the hair gerauft have. The simple realization: the guest is there in case of doubt, no matter much that the city is "poor but sexy" is when he cops, taxi drivers or conductors angeschnauzt will.


Red I on the chest


It now wants the capital to draw: Just in time for the start of the ITB tourism fair, the campaign "Be Berlin" a friendly push. Under the slogan "the heart and mouth" from Wednesday to several thousand Berliners with multicolored buttons on his clothes on as they consider voluntary advice contact for guests of identity.

For the action have been 1000 police officers, nearly 2000 employees of S-and U-Bahn, 150 Straßenfeger Hostesses and 500 agreed, but also taxi drivers, waiters and other service providers. They should give information, if necessary, the city plans to distribute, but its warm and courteous.

The objective is "the city a little friendlier," said Rene Gurka of the Economic Development Corporation Berlin Partner during the presentation of the campaign. Despite all the prejudices, the Berliner namely truth "service oriented, hospitable and open to the world."

And they are also self: "Wat kiekstn so Fatzke?" It says on postcards which were printed in the campaign, or "clear Allet, dit kannste evenly bend again", accompanied by the slogan: "Coming soon: The friendly Berlin ".

The campaign is not the very first of its kind for the soccer World Cup 2006, Berlin taxi driver an extra training in English and courtesy training. The offer of a private language school and the taxi drivers' guild was part of a national service and friendliness campaign, which the Economic and the Ministry of Interior three million euros would cost. The success, however, is unknown.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Playing with fire.

In mid-March in Valencia, there is a state of emergency: With sumptuous costumes, paella contests and a lot of fireworks to welcome the Spaniards this spring. On the closing day of the festival seems to be the entire city to stand up in flames.

 


Valencia - Spring Festivals in Spain there are many. But nowhere is it louder, more colorful and fiery than in the Fallas in Valencia. For five days transforms the Mediterranean city in mid-March in a solid mile. Attract Valencianos pride in splendid costumes through the streets. Paella cooking competitions on the open road, traditional folk dances, festive parades, fireworks, bullfights and the Fallas, giant sculptures of cardboard across the city, attract hundreds of thousands of tourists. Last year 1.2 million people came to Valencia - a city in a state of emergency.

Beatriz Gómez-Lechón Verdia has long waited for this moment. The 16-year-old fieberte the whole year against the Fallas. It should be "their" fallas are. Falla your club, she had to "Fallera Mayor determined. Every district or neighborhood each major Falla is a community aimed at a road crossing a marquee organized, at its own expense, one of the giant-Falla monuments can be built and as representatives of the Festival Society, a woman (Fallera Mayor) and a girl (Fallera Infantil) certain.


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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Lufthansa opens luxury lounge.

Luxury sells: Lufthansa at Frankfurt airport has a First Class Lounge in operation. According Wellness Spa and whiskey-drink can, the customer with a limousine to the plane Chauffeur - often with rubber animals in the luggage.

 


Frankfurt / Main - What are people who already have everything, from foreign bathrooms with? Little Yellow Quietsche-duck, the answer is in the new Luxury Lounge of Lufthansa at Frankfurt airport. "People are crazy about the animals," says Carola woodpecker at the reception at the German airports hitherto unprecedented Spa stands. Lufthansa lamented the massive loss of plastic animals, but on the contrary glad its major customers a little joy to make.

In the midst of economic crisis, the airline at its main hub in Frankfurt, a classy lounge packed in the transit area only by the First Class passengers and frequent flyers extreme may be used.

Covering an area of two football pitches will be the long-troubled "passengers to onward flight at no extra charge everything they also from the luxury hotels of the world know: work, flat screen TV, relaxing chairs, fine dining, more than 30 international newspapers, a bar with more than 80 brands of whiskey and a cigar lounge with a powerful exhaust. Overall, find up to 110 premium travelers a place commodes.

95 percent of the visitors are men, says the boss of the first-class sector Frankfurt, Ingrid Möller. According to dominate gray, brown and black lounge. Leather, glass and patinated brass put the accents. Of course, the freshly squeezed orange juice and especially thick towel. Noble nuts are always ready, as well as limousines for connecting flights, more than half of the visitors use.


Foot peeling for 35 euros


The real highlight of the approximately 1200-square-meter facility, however, is behind the counter by Carola woodpecker to be found. She is the mistress of six pools, each of them a single well would face. Besides the duck Quietsche find the traveling top managers and wealthy private citizens an extensive range of spa services, from an hour and a complete package for 150 euros to foot exfoliation (35 euros) last.

"I am personally amazed at how well the assumed," says Lufthansa's hub manager Karl-Rudolf Rupprecht. The Europeans are still skeptical, while U.S. citizens to such offers were totally open. In the states, there is finally long wellness big commercial providers at the airports.

For Lufthansa, which account for about one-fifth of their turnover with First and Business wants tickets, it is important in the global competition for the affluent customers to exist. Premium customers ultimately pay a multiple of the Economy Prize. For the next five years, investment of 150 million euros in the Lounge of Lufthansa planned system, the world's 65, this in three classes (First, Senator, Business) shared facilities with a total of more than 28,000 square meters of space operates. A lounge offers the first airline in Frankfurt, except only in Munich and New York.

At its main hub in Frankfurt, with around 34 million passengers and flights to 169 destinations, Lufthansa had already in December 2004, a dedicated terminal for their solvent customers.


Generators hum end


Apparently, also the top clientele cyclical insensitive than the companies involved in the crisis skimp on the tickets. In the first segment had been different than in business class do not impact the crisis be felt, says Rupprecht. The six-digit number of the first guests per year in Frankfurt climb steadily. "Today it is more than ever: Aldi or First."

Meanwhile the battle staff in the new transit lounge with teething problems. The optimal setting of the air conditioning is still just as sought quieter generators in the wellness area, which is still audible buzz. The fact that the Telekom has not yet done, the phones to work stations to provide even know then but ordinary citizens in person.