Hotel Sachsenhof is located at Nollendort Platz, in the heart of Berlin's gay village. With the Nollendorfplatz U-bahn station servicing lines U1, U2, U3 and U4 next to the hotel, all of Berlin is within reach. Location alone would make this hotel the first choice of the urban traveller, if the room standards were satisfactory. However, this hotel is in desperate need of renovation. Some of the rooms have recently been renovated, boosting the hotel up to a three star standard. Some of the older rooms leaves much to be desired, and the metal locker that has been placed in some of the rooms brings your thoughts back to boot camp rather than to holiday and relaxation. At this particular stay i was assigned a small, grimy, single bed room where stale cigarette smoke had penetrated every single piece of furniture, effectively prohibiting any feeling of comfort in the room, let alone offering the possibility to sleep there. After desperately airing out the room for 24 hours, the sour smell of old nicotine was still making it feel like you were sleeping in a bar. The staff's effort to mask the smell with industrial strength cleaning agents did not help very much either, quite the contrary.