Berlin Hotel Offers Camping Under Concrete

from Der Spiegel:





Love camping but hate the winter cold? Well, now your problem is solved. A new hotel in Berlin offers all the charms of outdoor camping inside a former vacuum-cleaner factory.

Franz Thum is an expert when it comes to tourism in Berlin. Every few weeks, the Vienna native abandons the Austrian capital and heads north to Berlin to sell souvenirs. He's very picky about where he stays the night, and he's tested numerous hotels. But now he's settled on the unique Hüttenpalast -- literally "Hut Palace" -- a recent addition to Berlin's trendy "Kreuzkölln" neighborhood, which straddles the border of the Kreuzberg and Neukölln districts.

"I've found a place to stay here where I can meet nice people," Thum says as he sips a soft drink in the hotel's lush courtyard. He's also drawn by its uniqueness. Indeed, no other hotel in Berlin gives guests the option of camping out year round -- albeit under a concrete, rather than a starry, sky.

Guests can choose where they'd like to hunker down for the night from a selection of wooden huts and camping trailers clustered inside a 200-square-meter (2,100-square-foot) hall that used to be part of a vacuum-cleaner factory. With the establishment of this cozy indoor camping village, what was once a dismal tribute to Berlin's industrial heyday has become a hotspot among tourists and locals alike. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,781012,00.html

God only knows we have enough buildings rotting away because they have no tenants...

...except that it smelled worse than anywhere I'd choose to camp.