Even with a global recession depressing every last marketplace, and Berlin reportedly saturated with hotels, there is still room to open one more link in a chain of business-hotels right in the centre of town. The Hotel Gates Berlin City East, to reveal its unwieldy name in full, was opened in December 2008, not far from the Charité hospital and the Berlin Wall museum on Bernauer Straße, as a pendant to the Hotel Gates Berlin City West in Charlottenburg.

Despite the soulless sterility that inevitably infects new business hotels - and the rooms here are comfortable but uninspiring - you'll be pushed to find better features than those on offer here. Many hotels do free internet access and satellite TV, but this is the only hotel in Berlin we've come across that will actually lend you a bike for free to scoot around town. For those who suffer from laziness, the hotel can also sell you a BVG public transport ticket at below the normal price. And children under 12 can stay in their parents' room for free. Most people would probably rather have this than a few knick-knacks lying around to preserve a homely ‘personal' atmosphere.