Sluttery Travels: The Ten Coolest Hotels in Berlin

A couple of weeks ago, I got to visit Berlin on a trip with Samsung. Berlin is absolutely one of my favourite cities (currywurst makes up about 35% of my love). It's a cool city, but in a way that's very different to London. It feels like London always seems to have a new trend, a 'next big thing' (we've moved very swiftly from cerviche to ramen, keep up). Berlin is trendy without even trying. It's effortless.

It's also a very photogenic city, which is why Samsung invited me there to play with their new Galaxy camera. This one:

What's so special about this camera? Well put aside the 21x zoom, 17 mega pixels, filters and in-camera editing for a second. It's 3G enabled. You can tweet images, share them on Facebook and Instagram, even upload to Dropbox (that's been the most useful thing). Basically all of the functions your smartphone will do (minus the phone calls), but with decent camera  functions. It's very weird tweeting from a camera. I like it. I really like the outdoor shots I took (the indoor ones with low lighting less so, they came out quite grainy) but I haven't played with all of the settings yet. It's a good middle ground between a camera phone and a DLSR.

I was probably a good ten minute walk away from the TV tower when I took this. Yeah, that's a good zoom. Will it replace my SLR? Probably not. Will it replace the crap excuse for a camera on my iPhone? Absolutely. If you're hooked on image sharing and want to improve your photography at the same time, you'll like this camera.

Want to explore Berlin a little bit more? I was only there for 24-hours and next time I'm back, I'm planning on staying in one of these amazing hotels. Check out the coolest hotels in Berlin.

Propeller Island City Lodge. This is one of the most spectacular hotels in Europe. Stay in the mirror room (pictured), or sleep in a cage or coffin, should the mood take you. It's surprisingly cheap at €75 a night.

Honigmond. Damn, this is a romantic hotel. And those gardens are absolutely gorgeous. Go when the sun is shining to make the most of them.

Ostel. This hotel is a little trip back in time to the East Berlin in the 70s. The interiors are lovely, if you like a retro vibe.

Hotel de Rome. This gorgeous hotel is part of the very swanky Rocco Forte chain. The also own Browns in London. How much d'you want to sink into that bath?

Casa Camper. One of the most popular design hotels in the city. I love those outdoor room lights.

Michelberger. I like that the Michelberger hotel take photos of their bedrooms with the beds unmade. (No, the rest really is quite lovely, I promise.)

Soho House. It might not be cheap, but the Soho House chain do know how to make a hotel look good. They've got a no mobile phones rule in the club. That's fine, just take your camera. HA. Take that, silly posh house rules.

Cosmo. It looks a little bit 'work hard/play hard', but I really like the look of this bar. If you want somewhere cool without y'know, sleeping in a coffin then you'll like this hotel.

Lux 11. This is such a lovely hotel (nifty website too). With such ugly, ugly bedding.

Hotel Bleibtreu. This is my favourite. It's known is the 'local hotel' which says a lot (not least that the locals don't mind a bunch of tourists turning up on their door at the time). It's known for it's friendly and relaxed vibe and at only €89 a night, it's affordable for weekend adventures.

I was invited to Berlin by Samsung and they let me keep the camera. None of the gorgeous hotels were linked with the trip, I just wanted to share.