 | Berlin today Berlin is a large and prosperous city, where business and slick city styles amalgamate with vibrant arts, music and youth scenes. It is built over several waterways making almost any journey require crossing a bridge. Beautiful ancient architecture, bombed out shells of buildings, modern monuments and murals painted by children make up some of the sights you will see when you first come into the city. The Berlin region is separated into 12 boroughs, each with its own distinctive character. This is due to the former separation of the regions. There are many top-class museums and p |
 | Berlin Back Then Berlin has had an illustrious history, if a relatively short one, and has been in the hands of five forms of government, all in the 20th century. Berlin was only founded as a city in the 13th Century and was initially a small town. It was amalgamated with neighboring CölIn (which is the current Neukölln) to make a town of 8000 residents. In the early 18th Century, Frederick I began the Prussian Empire, making Berlin the capital and royal residency. His successor, Frederick II, known as Frederick the Great, built the now famous Brandenburg Gate and a stone wall around the city. G |
 | Brandenburger Hof Berlin This Prussian style hotel is conveniently located to public transport links. The hotel’s restauran |  | Hotel Adlon Kempinski This hotel is an exact replica of the 1907 Adlon hotel, and hosts a wide range of guests including c |
 | Hotel de Rome This hotel is a renovation of an 1889 building, and as one of only a handful of luxury hotels in Ber |  | Hotel Palace Berlin This hotel is centrally located and offers guests two bars and a delicious gourmet restaurant. There |
 | The Regent Berlin There are two restaurants in this five star hotel, an excellent bar, and an exquisite tea and champa |  | East Side City Hotel This hotel is located close to public transport and offers 36 rooms, all with a bath or shower. The |
 | Berlinomat This minimalistic fashion store is uniquely Berliner. The clothes, furniture and jewellery are all c |  | Galeries Lafayette just outside Franzosische strasse station in Mitte, this beautiful arcade-like complex is host to |
 | Hackescher Markt This beautiful courtyard has all the upmarket alternative shops if you are into anything apart from |  | Ku’damm short for the Kurfurstendamm and neighbouring Tauentzienstrasse are ‘mall streets’, where you ca |
 | Thatcher’s Store This clothing store offers the latest fashions in the stylish Prenzlauberg area. The store itself, l |  | Harry Lehmann a perfume shop that uses natural ingredients and secret recipes. Brand name perfumes are not found h |
 | Staatsoper Unter den Linden festival 25th March-6th April, 10 high profile days of opera in Berlin. Also called the Festtage, it showca |  | Christmas markets most cities in Germany hold Christmas markets which are pretty much the same as they have been for t |
 | Berlin Love Parade the largest techno/dance music festival of its kind in the world, the love parade features a whole d |  | Oktoberfest for a whole month, the city is running with beer of all sorts, and this is a good time to try the di |
 | Festival of Lights for two weeks every October, the historic and modern buildings and monuments in Berlin are lit up wi |  | Karneval der Kulturen this is the Carnival of Cultures, a dizzying weekend of celebrating the cultural and ethnic diversit |
 | Salomon Bagels Joachimstaler Str 13, Charlottenburg, but there are outlets in Potzdamer Platz and Tiergarten as wel |  | The KaDeWe (Kaufhaus Des Westens) It is a large department store full of brand name shops in Kurfurstendamm (Ku’Damm for short) and |
 | Melitta Sundström Mehringdamm 61, Kreuzberg, Telephone: 692 44 14. A typical Berlin but with a book and bric-a-brac sh |  | La Petit France As the name suggests, this a French restaurant. It specializes in delicacies from and of course, you |
 | Intersoup Mehringdamm 61, Kreuzberg, Telephone: 692 44 14. A typical Berlin Coffee place but with a book and b |  | Kushinoya This upmarket Japanese restaurant delivers everything it boasts of. The tastes are understated, as i |
 | Fast Facts -Location: Berlin is situated in the north-east of Germany, in the midst of a network of lakes and marshes. The river Spree follows a valley carved out by ice flows many thousands of years ago, and meets the wide river Havel in the borough of Spandau. Most of the region is flat with a few rolling hills. It is about 70km west from the border of Poland, and is completely surrounded by the region of Brandenburg. It is the cultural and administrative capital and most populous city in Germany, and is also a centre for commerce with many European companies headquartered there. -Dialing code: country: +49 : city: 30 followed by a three to nine-digit subscriber number, although the shorter numbers are now slowly being phased out. 015, 016 and 017 are prefixes for mobile phone numbers. -Emergency numbers: Police: 110 Fire and Ambulance: 112 Tourist Information Helpdesk: The Berlin Tourism Board: +49-(0)30-26 47 48-0, and specifically for hotel and events related enquiries: +49-(0)30-25 00 25 Car Breakdown Service: 01802 222 222 and 01802 343 536 Highway Patrol: Autobahnpolizei 030 4664 Telephone Directory Services: The Deutsche Telekom number for national enquiries: 11833 international enquiries 11834 and for English service: 11837 Airport Enquiry: 180 5000 186 Railway Enquiry: Deutsche-Bahn (the comprehensive national railway) 11861. S-Bahn (t |
