Hotels booked out for Berlin Wall celebrations

(paul prescott)

Berlin hotels are booked out ahead of next week's 20th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Wall, with visitors descending on the city from across Germany and abroad, officials said Monday.

"It is crazy. All the hotels are saying they are full" on November 9, said Thomas Lengfelder of the Berlin Hotels Federation.

The German capital has about 104,000 beds in hotels and guest houses.

Lengfelder said the vast majority of guests would be Germans aiming to relive the euphoric night when the Wall fell in a peaceful revolution, paving the way for national reunification and the end of the Cold War.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are among those expected in Berlin for the festivities, set to climax in a "Freedom Party" at the Brandenburg Gate, which was on the border between West and East Berlin.

Highlights are to include a free concert by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Daniel Barenboim.