We stayed at the Gasteiner Hof for four nights in September 2010. It was the first city on a train journey through central Europe, when we also visited Prague, Vienna and Budapest.

The hotel has directions on its website. We landed at Schoenfeld airport, to the southeast of Berlin. From there we took a 171 bus to Rudow U-bahn station (10 minutes) where underground Line 7 goes without change to Blissestrasse (30 minutes). The hotel lies in a side road 100 metres to the north of the station and, after one false start, we found it without undue difficulty.

Our room (two floors above ground) was spacious, bright and clean. The shower / wc was cramped but adequate, with plenty of towels and hot water. The glazing was sufficient to eliminate street noise, though there was some audible sounds from other rooms. Though the mattresses were a little thin, the beds were comfortable and we slept well. The room was well maintained and supplied during our stay. There is no elevator and no nighttime reception. I was able to settle my bill with a debit card.

The buffet breakfasts were on the generous side of adequate, with cereal, cold meats, cheese, eggs, bread, yogurt and fruit, with unlimited tea, coffee and toast. Getting to and from the buffet table can be awkward in the smallish breakfast room.

The area is not oversupplied with quality restaurants, although we had a fair value meal at the nearby Badenscher Hof jazz club on a Friday night (it’s beer rather than wine here, as the latter is wildly overpriced). Otherwise, you can risk a local Imbiss (Berlin fast food takeaway / restaurant) or go uptown. There is a very handy and good 24 hour supermarket nearby on Berliner Strasse.

Getting around means using Berlin public transport: tube, bus and tram. The system is fairly intuitive, and a day ticket for the AB zone was a reasonable €6.10. Though German transport has a fine reputation, our final days were bedevilled with ticket machine issues, and service failures due to engineering works, demonstrations and mechanical breakdown; so allow sufficient time for your journey.