When visiting Berlin will you stay in an artsy boutique hotel? In a low cost hostel? In a trailer park?
The wonderfully cool thing about The Hüttenpalast is that the accommodations are all three of those—at once!
At Spot Cool Stuff we’ve reviewed more than our share of unusual hotels. But rarely have we found one that offers such an unconventional experience with such a relatively high level of comfort at such a relatively low price†.
Your typical airport bar is a semi-depressing place, full of lonely traveling salespeople and stressed passengers waiting out their flight delays. Happily, Munich—Europe’s beer capital and the spiritual home of Oktoberfest—is not your typical city when it comes to its bars. At Munich’s international airport you’ll find Airbräu. It’s the world’s only full-fledged beer garden that’s inside an airport. It’s also the world’s only in-airport brewery.
Amazing hot tubs. But going to the restroom is an undeniably chilly affair.
Spot Cool Stuff is occasionally asked what our favorite hotel chain is. The answer depends. We are fans of the W Hotels, appreciate the inexpensive airport stylings of Yotel and are keen on virtually all the Kimpton properties. But our choice for favorite hotel chain might have to be the igloos of Iglu-Dorf.
Why do we like the igloo rooms of Iglu-Dorf? Because they are igloo rooms. Made from real snow and ice.
There’s no other bicycle shop in the world where you have to give serious thought to your wardrobe before visiting.
The best bike shops in the world do more than sell and fix bicycles. They fill you with a sort of enthusiastic energy that makes you want to get out there and pedal.
There are lots of great community bicycle stores out there, too many for us to declare the six we feature below to be the absolute best. But each one is superlative in its own way:
On the shores of Lake Constance—which straddles Germany, Austria and Switzerland—the whales are not found in the water. They are found floating above it in the form of the massive whale-like zeppelin, the world’s largest commercial flying machine.
Note that zeppelins are different from blimps. Both have bulbous tops filled with a gas that’s lighter than air. But a blimp’s top has no internal structure; blimps are essentially steerable balloons. Zeppelins use a metal frame, which makes them more stable, agile, durable and quiet for passengers (since the engine can be placed further from the cabin).
One day you’re in. The next day you’re out.
Heidi Klum’s golden rule of Project Runway fashion is also the reality for the characters that comprise signs. One day you are an L or an R proudly pointing the way towards an attraction along with your fellow letters. The next day you are discarded.
Usually old signs end up in landfills or incinerators. But an especially lucky, and especially artistic, few have their letters go on display in museums. There people look at them not for any direction they can provide but for the works of art that they are.
Here’s a review of Spot Cool Stuff’s favorite unusual typography museums:
While skiing the dunes, sand will get inside your clothes. And it will go to places you very much would rather it wouldn’t
Ski bums, do not despair when the weather warms at your travel destination. Though the snow may vanish, your opportunity to partake in downhill skiing and boarding needn’t.
Here’s a Spot Cool Stuff look at three non-snow ski surfaces and where to enjoy them:
If it turns out that all you really need to know you didn’t learn in kindergarten then you can always try learning it at Maennergarten.
At least you could if you are an adult male in Northern Germany
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