Tuesday 13th November 2012

Major reason for a Poor Little Rich Gay to visit Berlin: not Prada which is miles away in the suburbs, along with all the other shops, nor the endless bomb sites nor the featureless modern buildings nor the torn, flattened horror of the city (of which more later: that, in its way, Poor Little Rich Gay).

Right opposite Dunkin’ Doughnuts and the blank glass and steel Sony Shopping Centre (with no uplifting shops) is the Mandala Hotel. Potsdamer Strasse 3. It’s got a superior glass swing door with honed steel frame that opens automatically as you approach – it actually works, unlike all other such doors.

At once you know: a sheet of gleaming gold mosaic behind the reception desk which is in fact two high banks, one behind the other, with clipped trees in pots flanking. Otherwise specialist white walls and chocolate stone floor.

You know you’re going to be completely loved in this hotel – all for the price of a swirly-carpet- 3 star anywhere else. Berlin is cheap.

Harry Rollo, king of hotels, told me about this hotel. He, of course, has given many a perf in Berlin.

The lift doors open the second the car gains the floor. Staff and eventually guests perfect the sweep from the lift. The rooms have a front door bell, palatial entrance corridor lined in sturdy, immaculate wood, wardrobe and suitcase room off, three-section bathroom on the other side. At the end of your progress up the corridor – the room, stretching as far as the eye can see in five-times refined sand and sage tones, pale,pale, pale, modern, modern, modern, pushed exquisitely to the borders of existence.

Board at once, Poor Little Rich Gays, for the Mandala Hotel, Berlin. Otherwise in Berlin, Berliners are dressed in all but gumboots for stumping about their city. Or they are on the pavement on a pre-War cycle. Pavement riding is allowed, apparently. The supermarkets are distinctly post-Communist and there’s no champagne.

But I’ll be telling you soon how to make the best of it, how to be Poor Little Rich Gay in Berlin, Germany.

Mandala Hotel, Berlin: Entrance Corridor to the Room

Adorable Mandala Hotel, Berlin: My Room. Très Bon Prix

My Room at Mandala Hotel, Berlin: Office Secton