Where to stay in Berlin: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

Unter den Linden is Berlin's great ceremonial avenue, running east from the Brandenburg Gate past embassies, the State Opera and Humboldt University towards Museum Island. The Reichstag, with its glass dome, and the Holocaust Memorial are a few minutes' walk from the Gate, and Friedrichstrasse, crossing the avenue, is lined with smart shops.

This is where Berlin keeps its most famous hotel, facing the Brandenburg Gate on Pariser Platz. Nearby, a five-star in a grand historic building sits steps from the State Opera, and polished hotels on Friedrichstrasse put you between the big sights, some at a gentler price. You can walk almost everywhere a first-timer wants to go.

Gendarmenmarkt is often called Berlin's most beautiful square: the Konzerthaus concert hall flanked by twin 18th-century domed cathedrals, the French and the German, with a famously atmospheric Christmas market in winter. A few blocks south, Checkpoint Charlie marks the most famous crossing point of the divided city.

Hotels here are grand and central. One five-star on the square is all marble and crystal chandeliers; a big five-star that rolls out a family welcome in the school holidays stands on it too. Around Checkpoint Charlie, there are modern four-stars and apartment hotels with kitchenettes, handy for families and longer stays.

Museum Island is a UNESCO-listed cluster of five great museums on an island in the Spree, beside the green-domed Berlin Cathedral. To the east, Alexanderplatz and its needle-like TV Tower are the heart of the old East Berlin; to the north, the streets around Hackescher Markt and the Scheunenviertel are full of courtyards, galleries and bars.

Stay in a riverside five-star beside the cathedral, in stylish self-catering apartments in this trendy part of Mitte, or in a good-value hotel in a building from 1911, two metro stops from Alexanderplatz and a 15-minute walk from the museums.

Potsdamer Platz was a wasteland in the shadow of the Wall; now it is a cluster of glass towers, cinemas, shops and restaurants rebuilt from scratch. Right next door, the Tiergarten unrolls for miles of woodland, lakes and beer gardens, with the zoo at its western edge and the Brandenburg Gate at its eastern one.

Hotels here are big, modern and well equipped: a five-star with a rooftop spa and pool, a large hotel beside the Tiergarten with an indoor pool, and a Scandinavian-style four-star. For something special, a boutique hotel sits quietly in the embassy district between the zoo and the park.

During the Cold War, the Kurfürstendamm was West Berlin's shop window, and it still has the swagger: a broad boulevard of flagship stores, theatres and cafés, with KaDeWe, continental Europe's biggest department store, nearby and the bomb-damaged spire of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church left as a memorial. The side streets of Charlottenburg are leafy, residential and full of good restaurants.

Hotels have old-school style. Choose from a privately run grand hotel beside the Memorial Church, a famous address right on the Ku'damm, a boutique hotel in a 1904 building on the boulevard, or an arty, intimate hotel in a 19th-century townhouse on one of the prettiest side streets. Mitte and Potsdamer Platz are a short train ride away.

This is the Berlin of legend. In Friedrichshain, the East Side Gallery, the longest surviving stretch of the Wall, is covered with murals along the Spree, and the streets around are full of bars, street food and some of the world's most famous techno clubs. Cross the red-brick Oberbaum Bridge and you're in Kreuzberg, with its canal-side cafés, Turkish markets and late-night everything.

Hotels make the most of the setting: a design hotel with a terrace near the East Side Gallery and the arena, a music-themed hotel right on the riverbank by the Oberbaum Bridge, and good-value modern hotels near Warschauer Strasse station and the leafy Volkspark Friedrichshain. Bring earplugs and stamina.

Potsdam, just beyond Berlin's south-western edge, was the summer playground of Prussian kings. Its centrepiece is Sanssouci, Frederick the Great's rococo palace above terraced vineyards, set in a vast park of palaces, follies and fountains. The pretty old town has a Dutch Quarter of red-brick gabled houses, and lakes surround the city.

It makes a calm alternative base, with trains to Berlin taking about 30 minutes. Stay in the historic centre opposite the rebuilt City Palace, in a hotel with a 19th-century façade near the palace gardens, or right beside Sanssouci Park.

For a late arrival or a dawn departure, the hotels at Berlin Brandenburg Airport make life easy. One sits directly at the terminal beside the train station, another is within walking distance of Terminals 1 and 2, and there's a big conference hotel close by. Fast trains run into central Berlin from the airport station.