We stayed over Easter weekend. We wanted a place that was located close to the Brandenburg Gate, walking distance to most of the museums, and was big enough for my wife and I and our 2 kids. Heinz's place was perfect. The great things: 1) Location - it looks out over the Jewish Holocaust memorial, with a view of the Tiergarten. You can walk to these in 5 mins, the Brandenburg Gate/ Reichstag in 10 minutes, and Museum Island, Checkpoint Charlie or the Kulture Center (Gemaldegalerie Museum) in 20 - 25 minutes. We didn't take a bus in 5 days. 2) There's a big supermarket (Hit-Ullrich Verbrauchermarkt) 5 minutes walk away, with a good coffee bar/baker attached. Perfect place to buy your morning lattes and Berliners. Right outside the apartment there's a bicycle shop/caffe which also does good coffees to go. In the same block (on Wilhelmstrasse) is a good Japanese restaurant (Sushi Club - it gets crowded in the evenings) and a great traditional German restaurant (Alt Berliner Wirsthaus). We ate at Alt Berliner twice, your neighbourhood place for pork and beer. We also walked 10 minutes to the more up-scale Maximilians German restaurant - which had the traditional dresses, but the food was pretty much the same as Alt Berliner Wirsthaus. 3) Check in (and check out) could not have been easier with the management office a few minutes away. We were able to store our luggage there on arrival and departure and they called a taxi for us. Super nice service speaking English. The apartment is an old East German block. It was clearly a show-case built near the wall insight of the West, and it's no worse than a lot of 70s/80s apartments in the West. Infact, it was kind of cool especially as we went to the DDR Museum and we were explaining to our kids about life in the old East Germany. There was a little noise from neighbors on Saturday evening, but nothing too bad. Basically, it's what you hear in any apartment anywhere in the world. And quieter than many hotels I've stayed in. The people we met in the elevator seemed a cross-section of Berlin society. It didn't seem to be a hang out for party goers (fine with us). The bathroom is small but (having spent a lot of time in New York), I've seen smaller. The shower was fine (and drained once we cleaned out the double drain cover). The toilet is East German and weird. You'll see. The only problem was that the bathroom sink was blocked. We used the kitchen so it was no big deal and the management company was very apologetic. As it was Easter weekend, we didn't bother to report it or get it fixed until when we moved out. Some reviews mention the beds. The mattresses are really not good - sharp bits sticking out. The rest of the furniture/fixtures/kitchen stuff is fine, so bit strange about the mattresses. Maybe it's a German...