StarwoodGuy: Around the World With Starwood Hotels in 30 Days

I hopped on another ICE and headed to Berlin, a non-stop service connecting Germany’s two largest cities in under two hours. I loved the complimentary First Class Haribo Gummi Bears and that coffee and cappuccino were brought right to your seat though there is a charge for these latter items, not to mention the complimentary wifi which helped me get work done on the go. I had reserved a seat as was required, but the First Class section was not even half full on my midday train. Arriving at the Hauptbahnhof, I jumped onto the S-Bahn, the city train, to the station closest to the Westin Grand Berlin, my next stop. The city has two Starwood properties, the Westin and the Sheraton. The Westin, which is right in the heart of the tourist area and a famous hotel used by the East Germans during the Cold War is also a property I had stayed at on my previous visit and it can also be seen in one of the Jason Bourne films. The Sheraton Esplanade is a more modern business hotel. I opted for a stay at the Westin having loved the hotel previously.

When I checked in I was told I was getting an upgrade to a salon room on the main street Unter Den Linden. While it was not a suite upgrade the room was spacious and modern, it was the very last room in the new wing of the building. The location on Unter den Linden was amazing. I opened up the large bay windows and looked out to my right to see the Television Tower at Alexanderplatz and Museum Island then turned my head to the left to see the Brandenburg Gate. I had to do around two hours of work in the room then showered and headed out quickly before sunset. It is a brief stroll down Unter Den Linden and its street side cafes, past the British, French and US embassies to the impressive Brandenburg Gate. Just next to it is the start of the massive Tiergarten Park, the impressive government building or the Reichstag is at the beginning, as well as the Jewish Memorial and the memorial to homosexuals, persecuted and killed in the Second World War by the Nazis. From there I walked back down Unter Den Linden to the Museum Island with the beautiful university buildings, museums and galleries. It is a short walk into the shopping area of Alexanderplatz and then from there I took the much longer walk over the Potsdam River into the Kreuzberg neighborhood. This area had just been taking off when I was here the last time but now it was one of the main nightlife areas. Cafe street-side restaurants and bars lined street after street in the neighborhood. I opted to just grab a beer and a sandwich on the go to keep walking throughout the neighborhood and back towards the main center and over to Check Point Charlie, one of the most famous crossing points from East to West Berlin during the cold war. A short walk from there and I was back at the hotel.

The next morning I opted for a quick workout in the small gym. I was beginning to miss those first days at the Westin Chosun and its massive facility. The gym was almost a copy of Le Meridien’s gym in Hamburg, too tight for two people to be doing weights. I did cardio again until the other person was done. The nice difference here was that the gym had a nice outlook onto the large indoor pool and spa area. There were also saunas in the very relaxing space. I headed back to my room and had a quick shower and made it down to the breakfast restaurant, a separate space just for breakfast with the main dinner space Relish being in the lobby with a very trendy bar that flows out onto the street in its own outdoor cafe. The breakfast was good with the usual German fare of brochen, meats, cheeses, eggs, bacon and a variety of juices, champagne, and an omelet station.

After breakfast I did a few hours of work before heading out on my next big walk back up Unter Den Linden and into the Tiergarten and over to the modern Sony Center complex with Legoland for the kids and young at heart, Potsdamer Platz with a memorial and sections of the Berlin Wall, and then I made the long walk over the river to the Schoenberg neighborhood with outdoor cafes and restaurants and then on into the main shopping street of “KuDamm" and the Ka De We department store, Berlin’s answer to Harrods. I stopped in menswear and resisted buying anything even though the strong US dollar made the cost for European items here now much lower then they would be at a Nordstrom or Barneys back in the US and much less then Holt Renfrew in Canada. I headed upstairs to the wonderful restaurant and grocery area and marveled at the options for food. I had a quick beer while looking out over the city, then made the short walk to the Berlin Zoo. I decided to purchase a combination pass for the Zoo and the Aquarium which is just at the edge of the zoo for twenty Euros. The zoo itself is amazing. The construction allows for the almost easy integration of the animals with their surroundings, and outside of the caged lions, tigers and other large cats, you barely notice there is a barrier between you and the animals. The aquarium is good but many of the aquatic animals such as the penguins and seals are in the zoo not the aquarium, so next time I would skip the aquarium and its focus on insects and smaller fish. It is always funny to see what interests people at a zoo. I see seals all the time in Victoria, Vancouver and Seattle, but here they were the highlight of the zoo especially for the kids. Right next to the large seal area is a big kids play area which was packed, so a great choice for families. I finished by grabbing an iced coffee at Starbucks and made the long walk through the Tiergarten to the Victory Column, then down and back to the hotel all in the midst of a massive rally for Turkish citizens judging by the tens of thousands of people carrying flags. Hundred of buses lined the roads of the Tiergarten but fortunately it is a massive park so there was room for the hundreds of police, thousands of demonstrators, and the tourists. Having the streets closed to traffic made it great for photos in the middle of the road. I grabbed a quick sandwich and a bottle of wine at the train station next to the hotel and went back to the room. After a full day of walking I called it an early night.

The next morning I asked for a 6:00 am wake up call so I could go for a morning run around Museum Island, Unter Den Linden, and through part of the Tiergarten before a quick work out and then another delicious breakfast, then I headed out from the hotel to the neighboring S-Bahn station and my next train on to Prague. Many people in Essen and Velen told me that Hamburg was the most beautiful city in Germany, definitely out of the larger ones. When walking around Berlin you would not call it beautiful in the way that Hamburg is with large avenues, massive villas on the Elbe, and a focus on being near the water. No, Berlin on the other hand has a gritty feeling, and you can walk along Unter Den Linden from modern hotels and embassies to beautiful older buildings at Museum Island, wander through graffiti tagged neighborhoods such as Kreuzberg, and do some of the best shopping I had seen in KuDamm. Berlin is not what I would call charming like Cologne or polished like Hamburg, but it is certainly an amazing city with a bustling and dynamic feel about it, and much less expensive to both live or visit then other capitals such as London or Paris. The Westin Grand in Berlin is the perfect place to take in all the amazing things that Berlin has to offer, with a good hotel breakfast, nice rooms, a wonderful pool and spa area, and very friendly service.