Hotel Adlon Kempinski

The first Hotel Adlon was opened at this site in Berlin Mitte in 1907, and immediately became the city’s most prestigious lodging. Kaiser Wilhelm II was an early and frequent guest, and during the teens and twenties European royals and American industrialists rubbed elbows with Chaplin, Einstein, and a then-unknown Marlene Dietrich. Greta Garbo met MGM’s Louis B. Mayer in an Adlon elevator, launching her American film career.

Since then the hotel fell on hard times, having been variously burned down, rebuilt, and demolished, leaving just a vacant lot in the no-man’s land between East and West. Fortunately for us, though, it has since been completely rebuilt, and is again the top luxury hotel in Berlin — and what was once a wasteland is now the Mitte, the middle, the thriving commercial center of the new Berlin.

The resurrection comes at the hands of the Kempinski group, who have some experience in this sort of thing, and on this score it does not disappoint. All 382 rooms and suites come standard with satellite television, wireless internet, and cell phones rather than land lines. Every convenience available in the average five-star hotel is on offer here, on a silver platter (and probably before you requested it, given the efficiency of this staff).

There are several lounges and restaurants, including one very fine gourmet establishment named in honor of the original Lorenz Adlon. The Spa offers a variety of massages, saunas, and steam baths, and the pool and fitness center have their own dedicated elevator, accessible from every floor, eliminating the chance of being seen in the hotel's public spaces in one's bathrobe.

The Adlon’s central location is ideal, overlooking the Brandenburg Gate and Pariser Platz, within easy reach of the Reichstag and Potsdamer Platz. But in a hotel this luxurious, you could be forgiven for shutting yourself in — just dial the front desk and tell them, in Garbo’s words, “I want to be alone.” They've probably never heard that one before.