The Cleveland Orchestra

31 August - 7 September 2022
HAMBURG, BERLIN & AMSTERDAM

Itinerary

Days
Hours
Minutes

DAY 1
Wednesday, 31 August: Arrivals

  • Arrivals

    Individual arrivals into Hamburg and check into the hotel.

  • Check In

    Check-in to the The Fontenay, Hamburg.

  • Afternoon

    Walking tour around the HafenCity Hamburg and the Speicherstadt, the largest warehouse district in the world with our local guide.

  • Dinner

    Early dinner at the Störtebeker Elbphilarmonie.

  • Concert

    The Cleveland Orchestra Concert at Elbphilarmonie.

  • Overnight

    The Fontenay, Hamburg

Hamburg

Hamburg's historic label, ‘The gateway to the world’, might be a bold claim, but Germany’s second-largest city and biggest port has never been shy. A leading light in the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages, Hamburg became a centre of international trade, a legacy that continues today: it remains one of Germany's wealthiest cities and Hamburg’s maritime spirit still infuses the entire city. It's the sort of city where echoes of the city's port and history are everywhere, from the incessant cry of gulls overhead to the vibrant neighbourhoods awash with multicultural eateries, seaward-facing architecture and the gloriously seedy Reeperbahn red-light district.

DAY 2
Thursday, 1 September

  • Morning

    Private guided tour of the Elbphilharmonie, with a welcome by the general and artistic director – Christoph Lieben-Seutter (TBC).

  • Late morning

    Visit to Hamburg’s Rathaus and nearby St Petri’s Church.

  • Lunch

    Lunch at Schönes Leben Speicherstadt.

  • Afternoon

    Private guided visit of the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

    Drop by the St Michael’s Church, and climb to the top of the tower for beautiful city views. The baroque church boasts 5 organs and we could potentially organize an organ recital (TBC).

Elbphilharmonie

The Elbphilharmonie Hamburg comprises two concert halls, a hotel, and the Plaza, which offers visitors an amazing view of the city. After the festive inauguration on January 11th and 12th, 2017, the impressive concert hall is now a defining feature of the Hamburg skyline.

Hamburg’s Rathaus

Hamburg Town Hall was built from 1886 to 1897 and with its impressive architecture dominates the center of the city. The magnificent sandstone building houses the city's senate and parliament.

  • Dinner

    Dinner at Tschebull Restaurant or Coast.

  • Overnight

    The Fontenay, Hamburg

Hamburger Kunsthalle

Housed in three adjacent buildings that each represent a different architectural style, the Kunsthalle is the largest art museum in Germany. Its permanent collection reflects seven centuries of artwork, focusing on European art history. Special gems include works from the Golden Age of Dutch painting, 19th-century German and French masterpieces, a large collection of modernism art and sculpture, as well as contemporary art from Pop Art to present.

DAY 3
Friday, 2 September

  • Morning

    Early check-out of The Fontenay, Hamburg and travel 3 ½ hours by coach to Potsdam.

  • Lunch

    Lunch at Restaurant Juliette in Potsdam’s Dutch quarter.

  • Afternoon

    Special visit with Curator Dr Vogther of Sans Souci Palace, one of the finest Rococo palaces in Europe. The visit will be followed by a tour of the garden and sculptures.

    Continue 1 hour to Berlin to check into The Regent Hotel, Berlin.

  • Dinner

    Dinner at Restaurant VOLT in main restaurant.

  • Overnight

    The Regent Hotel, Berlin

Sans Souci Palace

Potsdam is to Berlin what Versailles is to Paris. For centuries, it was the summer residence of the Kings of Prussia. Today, it is an elegant residential town with a beautiful Baroque center and three landscaped parks filled with palaces, churches, temples, pagodas, teahouses, grottos and a wonderful array of architectural follies. In 1990, Potsdam, formerly in communist East Germany, was assigned UNESCO world heritage status; some 80 per cent of the town’s historic buildings have been subsequently restored.

Berlin

Bismarck and Marx, Einstein and Hitler, JFK and Bowie, they’ve all shaped – and been shaped by – Berlin, whose richly textured history confronts you at every turn. This is a city that staged a revolution, was headquartered by Nazis, bombed to bits, divided in two and finally reunited – and that was just in the 20th century! Walk along remnants of the Berlin Wall, marvel at the splendour of a Prussian palace, visit Checkpoint Charlie or stand in the very room where the Holocaust was planned. Berlin is like an endlessly fascinating 3D textbook where the past is very much present wherever you go.

DAY 4
Saturday, 3 September

  • Morning

    Before-hour highlights visit of the Pergamonmuseum with Prof. Dr. Barbara Helwing, Director of the Ancient Near East Museum at Pergamonmuseum (TBD). Tour will include a visit to the Aleppo Rooms.

  • Late morning

    Depart Pergamonmuseum and transfer to the Reichstag. Enjoy a reflective walk around the ‘Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe’ outside the Reichstag.

    Private tour of the contemporary art collection inside the Reichstag (TBD).

  • Lunch

    Lunch at the Reichstag at Restaurant Käfer.

  • Afternoon

    This afternoon we will enjoy a tour of the major landmarks of former East Berlin. We will see the Brandenburg Gate, now-iconic buildings by architects Frank Gehry and I.M. Pei, Potsdamer Platz (divided by the Berlin Wall until 1989), and the East Side Gallery, where international artists painted a remaining section of the Berlin Wall in 1990.

Pergamonmuseum

The museum now houses three of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin’s collections: the collection of antiquities, the Near Eastern Museum and the Museum of Islamic Art. The impressive reconstructions of massive archaeological structures – the Pergamon Altar, Market Gate of Miletus, the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way from Babylon, and the Mshatta Facade – have made the Pergamonmuseum famous throughout the world, with the result that it is the most visited museum in Germany.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Inaugurated in 2005, this football-field-sized memorial by American architect Peter Eisenman consists of 2711 sarcophagi-like concrete columns rising in somber silence from the undulating ground. You’re free to access this maze at any point and make your individual journey through it.

  • Concert

    The Cleveland Orchestra Concert at Berlin Philharmonie.

  • Dinner

    Post-performance dinner at Lutter & Wegner Weinhandlung in a private room.

  • Overnight

    The Regent Hotel, Berlin

Berlin Philharmonie

The Philharmonie Berlin has been the musical heart of Berlin since 1963. Still at the periphery of West Berlin when it opened, it became part of the new urban centre after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its unusual tent-like shape and distinctive bright yellow colour makes it one of the city’s landmarks. Its unusual architecture and innovative concert hall design initially ignited controversy, but it now serves as a model for concert halls all over the world. “One person opposite another, arranged in circles in sweeping, suspended arcs around soaring crystal pyramids.” In 1920 the architect Hans Scharoun wrote these words as a vision for the ideal theatre space. Thirty-five years later, he developed the main concert hall of the Philharmonie from this idea, with the concert platform and the musicians forming the central focal point.

DAY 5
Sunday, 4 September

  • Morning

    Guided tour of the Neues Museum.

  • Late Morning

    Highlights guided tour of the Alte Nationalgalerie. Followed by a coffee and some shopping in the Hackesche Höfe area.

  • Lunch

    Lunch at Café Einstein Stammhaus in the private library.

Neues Museum

Berlin's Neues Museum showcases the cultural history of our ancestors across the globe. The Neues Museum, housed in a beautiful neoclassical building, pulls together 9,000 interesting and unusual objects spread across three major historical collections.

Hackesche Höfe

The Hackesche Höfe is the largest and most famous of the courtyard ensembles peppered throughout the Scheunenviertel. Built in 1907, the eight interlinked Höfe reopened in 1996 with a congenial mix of cafes, galleries, shops and entertainment venues. The main entrance on Rosenthaler Strasse leads to Court I, prettily festooned with art nouveau tiles, while Court VII segues to the romantic Rosenhöfe with a sunken rose garden and tendril-like balustrades.

  • Afternoon

    Private tour of the Sammlung Boros Collection.

  • Dinner

    Dinner at leisure.

  • Overnight

    The Regent Hotel, Berlin

Sammlung Boros Collection

Built in 1942 to protect passengers at nearby Friedrichstraße Station from aerial bombardment, the concrete bunker was converted into a gallery space by modern art collector Christian Boros in 2003.

 

DAY 6
Monday, 5 September

  • Morning

    Check out of Hotel Regent, Berlin, and transfer to airport. Flight from Berlin to Amsterdam.

  • Lunch

    Lunch in the Blue Room at the restaurant Haesje Claes for a typical Dutch lunch in a traditional setting

Haesje Claes

Ornate tiles and wood paneling adorn this traditional Dutch restaurant spread over 6 quaint houses.

Museum Van Loon

An impeccably preserved 17th-century canal house that still exudes the wealth of the Van Loons, one of the founders of the Dutch East India Company.

  • Afternoon

    Walking tour of Amsterdam’s canals.

    Check into the Conservatorium, Amsterdam.

  • Dinner

    Arrival at Museum Van Loon, home of the original co-founder of the Dutch East-India Company - Willem Van Loon - now open to the public as a showcase of 17th century taste and art. Cocktails followed by dinner at Museum Van Loon.

  • Overnight

    Conservatorium, Amsterdam

DAY 7
Tuesday, 6 September

  • Morning

    Tour of the Rijksmuseum, with special focus on the musical instruments in the collection.

  • Lunch

    Lunch at Rijks restaurant.

Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum is one of Amsterdam’s grandest and most popular museums. Its vast collection showcases iconic art and a wide variety of artefacts that reflect more than 800 years of Dutch and global history, including jaw dropping paintings by the likes of Rembrandt, Van Gogh and countless more Dutch greats.

Concertgebouw

The Concert Hall was built in 1888 by AL van Gendt, who managed to engineer its near-perfect acoustics. Bernard Haitink, former conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, remarked that the world-famous hall was the orchestra's best instrument.

  • Afternoon

    Guided tour of the Concertgebouw.

  • Dinner

    Pre-performance Dinner at Restaurant De Kas in the private Garden Room.

  • Concert

    The Cleveland Orchestra Concert at Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

  • Overnight

    Conservatorium, Amsterdam

Restaurant De Kas

This farm to table concept restaurant is famous by their design and the vegetables that are grown in their own garden.

DAY 8
Wednesday, 7 September: Departures

  • Morning

    Individual departures from Amsterdam

*Please note that this programme will be subject to change.