There are lots of hotels in Hamburg - we went for a chain to make it easy and to know they'd have english speakers if needed. It turns out that in Hamburg (and Lübeck) loads of people speak English (and other languages) - random staff in burger bars, cafes, just everywhere it seemed - so you can get by with a phrase book for a bit of help or no real German at all. I had learnt German at school so was exited to be able to go back to it. I downloaded a free app onto my phone (duolingo) for practising at home. I would recommend also downloading a phrasebook or translation app if you are going to try and speak German out there, as I had some moments where I knew all the other words in the sentence except the crucial one!
The clinic staff speak English so you don't need to worry if you don't speak German. I enjoyed practising my German with them and they enjoyed speaking English with me.
In Lübeck the clinic is next to a hotel called Traveller Hotel. This hotel is literally next door to the clinic and very affordable. There are two Traveller Hotels on the same road so if you are walking to the clinic don't panic when you see a Traveller hotel and no Hanse-Klinik! Just keep walking and a few minutes later you will see another hotel and the Klinik entrance.
The clinic is a little way out of the centre of Lübeck. We stayed in the Park Inn which is only around 10 minutes walk from the train station and a similar distance (or less) from the town centre. That made eating out in the evening easier (as we went to Lübeck) earlier to see something of the town and enjoy the trip. It took us around 40 minutes to walk from there to the clinic. I got a taxi the morning of my surgery (the hotel ensured they booked english speaking drivers for reassurance) and that cost around 10-13 euro. So if you wanted to stay by the clinic the night before you could still eat out in town. Get a taxi number from the hotel as we didn't see lots of taxis cruising around so wouldn't have known where to get one.
No comments:
Post a Comment