Berlin in winter - Telegraph Outside the hotel, I spy the Brandenburg Gate and Norman Foster's glittering Reichstag dome visible at one end of the broad boulevard, the cathedral and the tall television tower at the other. I cross the street to Berlin Story, the world's only bookshop stocking solely books about a single city. The joy: 10,000 books about Berlin, many in English. It's hard to decide where to browse first - the stacks of guides or the shelves devoted to each period of the city's tumultuous history. Germany's formation in 1871; the First World War; the Twenties" Weimar Republic; the rise of Nazism; the Second World War; the Cold War; the fall of the Wall in 1989; reunification... each section is crammed with eyewitness accounts, academic reports, novels, diaries, biographies and books of photographs. I run my fingers longingly over Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin, a book about his colourful life in the city in the Thirties, which inspired the film Cabaret, and add it to my pile, only to abandon it at the checkout. "Don't worry - we mail to anywhere in the world," says the assistant reassuringly. Next door, in the old Einstein café, relishing the candlelit warmth, I open the first of my three new guidebooks (a triumph of luggage-minded prudence over temptation), and wonder how many museum visits one can cram into a two-night stay. A lot of the most interesting are within walking distance of where I am, in Mitte, in the former East Berlin, but there are several farther afield, including one based in the old Stasi headquarters, on the city's eastern edge, and the Bauhaus museum, in the former West Berlin. No time to waste, then. Soon after six, I am pushing open the heavy wooden doors of Clärchens Ballhaus, in the heart of Mitte. This is not a museum, but a museum-piece. The city used to be full of dance halls, and this, built in 1913, is the last that remains. In the shabby little lobby, the retired-bouncer type reading the paper in the dark, wooden coat-check booth looks like a George Grosz sketch. I stand at the threshold and drink in the scene. White-aproned waiters tidy chairs at the long tables flanking the scuffed dance floor and musicians drift in to set up on the little stage. It's hard not to turn the clock back 75 years and see swastika-wearing louts sprawling at the tables, but the only guests now are a group of tourists eating sausages. Ignored by the waiters, clearly used to sightseers, I stay a few minutes before setting out into the chilly night. Around the corner, then another, and across a cobbled street, I find the Hackesche Höfe complex. A series of Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) apartment blocks linked by eight courtyards, it contains some of the most fashionable shops, bars and cafés in Mitte, as well as a cinema, and, on the corner, the Hackescher Hof (hackescher-hof.de), an elegant wood-floored restaurant. Dense, chewy bread and salty butter, seafood linguini, a slice of poppyseed tart and coffee come to just under £15. Fortunately it is Thursday - late opening night at the museums (they mostly close on Mondays) - and the next stop on my list will be open until 10pm. Guided by the television tower, I make my way along streets dotted with little design shops, and, back on Unter den Linden, to the German Historical Museum. With exhibits explained in English as well as German, it is utterly absorbing. I spend most of my time in the section devoted to Berlin in the Twenties, and have to speed-walk though the Cold War galleries, before being snapped at to leave by a weary guard. The walk back to my hotel along Unter den Linden takes me past the Humboldt-Box - a hideous temporary glass centre offering information about the rebuilding of the city centre - and Neue Wache, the national war memorial. Housed within the neoclassical Prussian, former royal guard house, this is a silent shriek, empty but for the figure of a mother grieving over the corpse of her dead son, moonlight slanting on her from the open roof. Is Berlin the most engrossing city in Europe? By the following evening, I can't think of anywhere else - literally, in the world - that I want to come back to sooner. First, I'm back at the German Historical Museum for an hour, then to our own David Chipperfield's brilliant barebrick restoration of the Neues museum (ancient art), one of the five on the nearby Museum Island, then on to the Reichstag's viewing platform, then displays of everyday life in East Germany at the DDR museum, and, finally, going down into the U-Bahn system to get to the Story of Berlin museum. Each visit has been pure pleasure. Plans to find a good café have been abandoned as those in the museums are fine. But Anna Blume, Bar Gagarin, the original Café Einstein on Kurfürstenstrasse and Café Litteraturhau are all recommended by Henrik Tidefjaerd, the "city lifestyle" guide I meet for tea as rain pours. Everyone talks about the crazy creativity in Berlin - and it's true. Young people are moving here from all over the world because rents are fantastically low, and great cafés - and clubs, galleries and fashion stores - open literally every week," says Henrik. But if you have an interest in 20th-century history, as I do, there really is nowhere like it. To walk through bunkers where Berliners sheltered from bombing during the war, to see Hitler's own bunker, to stand in the room in Wannsee where the Germans discussed the Final Solution - those are incredible experiences. Henrik is Swedish, but has lived in Berlin for the past 12 years and set up his own guide service, Berlinagenten. And despite all my years here I have not seen all there is to see. One definitely can't see all of Berlin in two nights and three days, and I have to forget the Stasi museum and several others. But public transport is extremely efficient, so there's no time wasted getting from A to B. There are short cuts, too. The 100 bus from Unter den Linden goes past many key sights; book a table for lunch at the Dachgarten restaurant on top of the Reichstag to avoid the long queue and gain direct access to Foster's dome and views across the city. Even getting lost brings benefits. On my last morning, I get out at the wrong stop en route to the Unterwelten (Underworld) experience, a tour of some of the city's infamous bunkers. But even here, at the Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station, I discover a fascinating exhibition dedicated to photographs of "ghost stations." During the Cold War, Berlin was walled up under as well as over ground, and after 1961 certain stations - including this one, had tunnels bricked up so that East Berliners couldn't escape into the West. I arrive at the booking office for the tour in English with just minutes to spare. One of the engineers responsible for excavating the bunkers - first opened to visitors in 2005 - leads the group, taking us through a series of concrete structures created during the digging of the U-Bahn system. It has become one of the most popular tours in the city, but lasts longer than I'd expected. I rush back to my hotel - having switched to the fabulous Grand Hyatt in Potsdamer Platz for my second night - to check out. "You should come back in summer - then you can sail a boat on one of our many lakes," says the receptionist, making a sad face at the drizzle. Summer? Is she kidding? I want to come back this winter. Berlin essentials The moving of Germany's capital from Bonn to Berlin meant that every luxury hotel group in the world felt obliged to have an outpost in the city, and the resulting glut means tour operators can get competitive deals at many five-star hotels.The best places to stay are on or around Unter den Linden in the former East Berlin, where the five-star Westin Grand (0049 30 20270, westin-grand.com) has big minimalist rooms, excellent breakfasts, and a grand staircase to the marble lobby and the glitzy Potsdamer Platz, formerly a no-man's-land between East and West. Here the five-star Grand Hyatt (0049 30 2553 1234, berlin.grand.hyatt.com) has one of the most exciting buildings in the area, all well thought-out comfort amid brutalist concrete and glass, with a buzzing bar and restaurant. The Kulturforum museum complex and Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie modern art museum are just a few minutes' walk away. Like the Westin, the Grand Hyatt has a U-bahn station nearby. A little farther out, expect to pay about €95 (£78) a night for a clean, perfectly decent hotel room. Berlin's best hotels: book at the lowest prices, guaranteed Pending the opening of Brandenburg International airport later this year, Berlin is served by two airports: Tegel in the former West and, a little farther out, Schönefeld in the former East. There are regular flights with a number of airlines to both. Adriaane Pielou flew from Heathrow to Tegel with British Airways, which offers two-night packages at the Westin Grand from £279 per person, at the Grand Hyatt from £289, room only, including all taxes, and at a four-star hotel from £179 (ba.com/berlin, 0844 493 0758). A taxi from Tegel, about five miles northwest, to Mitte costs between €18/£15 and €28/£23, depending on the traffic. The fare from Schönefeld is about €40/£34, but there are fast, regular S-Bahn services. U-bahn trains run mostly underground, S-bahn mostly overground. You can buy tickets near the platform: €2.30/£2 for a central one-way journey. Both systems are clean and efficient. Culture and shopping Avoid Mondays, when museums are shut, but most stay open late on Thursdays. Shops mostly open from 10am to 8pm, and are closed on Sundays. The Berlin Welcome Card (berlin-welcomecard.de) can be taken for 48 hours (€17.90), 72 hours (€23.90) or five days (€30.90). It gives free use of public transport and discounts of between 25 and 50 per cent on entry to 200 attractions. The Museum Pass costs €19 for free entry to 55 museums over 72 hours. Details of both cards can be found on visitberlin.de (0049 30 250025). Berlin In Your Pocket, a useful A5 monthly city guide, and the Exberliner magazine (€1.75 and €2.90 respectively) - available from bookstalls.