Writing something about a Hilton is not much use really, and I will only do so up to a certain point. Everybody knows what he is going to get here: well-appointed, well-organized, airconditioned dullnes. It must be said though that this hotel does have a history: before the Mauer fell in 1989, it used to be an old DDR-hotel (formerly called Interhotel of course). It was completely overhauled by Hilton, but its anti-capitalist looks still do shine through: the awesome size, the very long, somewhat dreary corridors, the bunkerlike looks, everything points to its former communist existence. The rooms are well appointed, and although the position, on Gendarmenmarkt, with U-Bahn Stadtmitte right in front of the entrance, is magnificent, from your window you will probably have a very dull view of an inner courtyard or so, unless you want to pay an enormous amount of extra money. Having your breakfast on the 1st floor watching the Deutsche Dom (and the French behind it) is awesome, but breakfast itself is rather mediocre. And there are to many people, most of the time. Downstairs, the lobby with its Wintergarten, is magnificent and it still attracts lot of Berliners who take their tea here, or a late afternoon-drink. But it is the strategic position of the hotel which really makes it an attractive place, and which – by the way - also makes clear how much the (former) western part of the city (round Kurfürstendamm) has lost its standing to the eastern part, now called Mitte. Along the Gendarmenmarkt, a formidable, rather Prussian looking square which has come very much to life in the last few years, are - if I am not mistaken - two other hotels (Westin and Dorint, I think) but in a much less nice spot. I have used the Berlin Hilton quite a few times by now - the last time in the end of july 2006, during an extremely hot period - and I can’t help coming back. Near, or on Gendarmenmarkt, are some good restaurants: Aigner, Lutter und Wegner, Vau, Malatesta and Borchardt. There is a pleasant, but perhaps a bit sleezy nightjoint (Newman) and there are many comfortable streetcafes. You are a 5 minutes walk from Unter den Linden (where in the Zeughaus a beautiful and very worthwhile new museum has just been installed – Museum fur Deutsche Geschichte, German History, yes) and the Opera. Friedrichstrasse is near too, with Lafayette, and the enormous Dussmann Kulturkaufhaus for books and cd’s. If you want, you can take a walk to Oranienburgerstrasse or Hackescher Markt, where part of the the real nightlife is, and even to the Kulturbrauerei in Prenzlau, which has become a great place, although that will take you half an hour, or a tram from Alexanderplatz. And then you should go to Wannsee of course (S-Bahn 1 or 7), make a walk round the lake, to the Liebermann-Villa, just opened too, or - much worse - to the Wannsee Villa itself, where Hitler and his cronies decied on what they nicely called the Endlösung of the Jewish question. If you still feel like eating afterwards you can do so watching the lake, at Seehase, or Sanscouci. History is everywhere in Berlin. And if you don’t feel like going anywhere at all, it will cost you no trouble at all staying in Berlin for a week without once moving 500 meters away from your hotel (which I have done quite a few times already, and which is nice too).