Where shall we stay? What should we visit? <BR>We like old castles, museums, history and non-touristy places.

Sorry I can't help you other than bringing this to the top. I never considered Berlin a romatic city although I did love it when I was there many many years ago(it was still split). The Brandenberg Tur is interesting, there are museums there but I don't know about Castles. <BR>Art <BR>

Sue, <BR>Berlin indeed is a very lively city, but i support Art that it is not quite a romantic one. <BR>The landmark is Memorial Church in city centre, closed to tourist information centre. The museum is unique, and is a part of an island in the river, from Brandenburg Tor, you will pass the Reischtag Dom, Tiergarten, and head to Victory monument. One great museum is definitely Check Point Charlie. Don't miss out your chance to see the real wall, and the end of U-bahn U1 towards Warshauer Str.

If you like castles then I think you'll probably also like to visit Charlottenburg (accessible on the U-bahn) and Sans Soucci in Potsdam (town just outside Berlin)

Fodors <BR> <BR>Berlin can't offer you castles, but hastwo palaces, Charlottenburg near the city centre and Potsdam half an hour by local train out westward. Potsdam includes a great park and light Baroque buildings, and might well have the right hotel for you nearby. <BR> <BR>Otherwise, water is romantic and you might settle for ahotel near the Wannsee,in the western suburbs. In any case, if boats are still plying you might like an evening trip across Berlin as the light fades. <BR> <BR>To sit at a cafe table and hold hands by candelight a good spot is the Hackescher Hof, just north of the Hackescher Markt. You can hire bicycles there, too. <BR> <BR>The history of Berlin is not romantic. Prussians, Kaiser Wilhelm, Nazis, the Berlin Blockade, the Cold War, the Wall. But there are many museums of world class where it takes only thought to fly your mind to Babylonia or ancient Greece -- in the Pergamon Museum in central Berlin, half a kilometer from the Hackescher Hof. And the Art Nouveau collection in the Brohan museum, across the road from Charlottenburg Palace, takes you straight into the Belle Epoque. The museum buildings unromantic to a degree -- just walk in. <BR> <BR>I think you can find other museums in http://gogermany.about.com/travel/gogermany/mbody.htm <BR>I'm not sure how much detail you get in <BR>http://www.euraide.de/insidetrack.html <BR>but it's worth a look. <BR>And it would be useful to open http://www.yahoo.co.uk, and enter "Berlin museums". <BR> <BR>Berkin is chocabloc with non-touristy places. The way I find them is to look up "music" in the Day's Programme page of the Berliner Zeitung daily paper, choose something I like for that evening, and ask my hotel keeper to say how to get there. Not a big concert -- something in a church or clubhouse. <BR> <BR>Please write if I can help further. <BR> <BR>Ben Haines, London <BR>[email protected] <BR> <BR>