Berlin - What area to stay?

briancarr82

Hi folks, have decided on Berlin for a city break in October, i'm trying to get my head around the different areas but it seems so big. We like walking around and would like to stay central in a decent 4 star. No worries about hotel suggestions, i'm more concerned i don't book a hotel too far out. All suggestions welcome, cheers :-)

jippo nolan

briancarr82 wrote: »

Hi folks, have decided on Berlin for a city break in October, i'm trying to get my head around the different areas but it seems so big. We like walking around and would like to stay central in a decent 4 star. No worries about hotel suggestions, i'm more concerned i don't book a hotel too far out. All suggestions welcome, cheers :-)

I would suggest Riu Plaza in The original West Berlin.
Beside the main shopping area & ubahn.
Great city!

Kevski

Check out 25hours Hotel Bikini at Kurfürstendamm - it’s quite an experience! It’s right next to the zoo and the Zoologischer Garten station which has excellent links to the rest of the city and train direct to Schönefeld Airport.

briancarr82

Looking to seat within walking distance to the hackescher market area. Was looking at he Amani group hotels, and the circus hotel. Anyone any experience of these?

iirishsham40

I was in Berlin in 2012 for over a week and loved it. It's a big flat city with loads to see and do. Very safe and friendly as well. It has the best metro system in any city I've been to, very punctual and cheap.

I stayed in a lovely hotel in the east of the city, it was called something like the "Park Inn Prenzlauer Berg", but I couldn't find it when I Googled it for you earlier.

After a while searching around, I found that it was taken over by the Holiday Inn chain of hotels. It is now called "Holiday Inn Berlin City Center East Prenzlauer Berg" Here is the link to the official website.

https://www.hi-berlin.com/en/

This means the hotel is probably even a higher standard now, as the Holiday Inn chain are known for their quality.

Hotels and things are slightly cheaper in the east of the city in general.

Here are my highlights of Berlin:

The Tiergarten Park.

Checkpoint Charlie.

The Brandenburg Gate.

The bust of Nefertiti at the Neues Museum.

Day trip to Potsdam to see the actual "Bridge of Spies" used for prisoner transfers between the USA and the USSR during the cold war. Also home to the UFA film studios.

City Bus tour with the company that does the red coloured bus tours in most big cities.

We did a tour of a civilian air raid shelter from World War 2, this was in a metro station in the suburbs. This was very spooky.

Also from WW2, we did a tour of a "Flakturm" - this was like a big fortress built to hold anti-aircraft guns, again very spooky to actually see real World War 2 artifacts.

For shopping, I would recommend the Galleria Shopping Centre in Alexander Platz. Beside this is another shopping centre called the Alexa. These are both huge.

The main upmarket "Grafton Street" shopping district, is in the west of the city in an area called Kurfursdendam, or Ku'damm for short. This is beside the "Zoo Station" metro station that Bono sang about.

Beside this are two very moving churches, one that was damaged during WW2 and was not restored on purpose, and one new one that was built after the war. They are called the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

We like to go to the cinema when on holiday, so we went to several films at the massive Sony Centre at Potzdamer Platz.

Have a great trip!

Sinus pain

I’m just back - stayed at the ivbergs premium hotel - although we spent no time in it! We fire into Schoenberg airport and bought an ABC ticket for 72 hours which did us for train and bus from and to the airport and all buses and train around the city. We did a free walking tour - it meets at 180 hostel( I think that’s the name) near Alexanderplatz- we had to book a spot online - that was great! There so much to do! Enjoy

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There a few years ago and stayed in the Raddison next to the catheral (the one with the huge fish tank in reception) - short walk from the train station (from the airport) and walked everywhere after that (except the zoo).