The word ‘chateau' might suggest to you something like a castle in the French countryside, or at least a big stately home surrounded by naked-girl statues. Neither of these things is really true of the Hotel Chateau. Instead, the building's former life as an office block seeps into the atmosphere, like the deadening density of a liver-coloured wall-to-wall carpet.

But this void is a little balanced by other practical features. For example, the rooms are large. So large, in fact, that a double can easily turn into a quadruple, and big groups can be very comfortably accommodated. Also, you get free wireless internet access everywhere - something to be prized in this day and age - and some of the brand new rooms, opened this summer, will have balconies.

Chateau or not, this place must be doing something right if it has survived in the forest of hotels on the inner city end of the Ku'damm.