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Art is life in Berlin, where the historic meets the hyper-modern, from the architecture down to the creative people who make this special city tick. Public transportation makes it easy to explore Berlin's museums and art galleries, but if you're staying at The Westin Grand, Berlin, you can actually walk to some incredible -- and incredibly different -- spaces for art in the fashionable Mitte neighborhood. Thousands of years of imagination are just steps away from your comfortable home base.

The relatively compact Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin (Unter Den Linden 13) would be one's closest stop and a good place to begin. It's a great spot to view special showcases that normally focus on one modern artist, but it won't take you very long. Continue down the same road to find the classic Deutsches Historisches Museum (Unter Den Linden 2), an institution that reaches back to the early cultures and Middle Ages of what is now Germany to document the very creation of a society through paintings, archaelogical artifacts, fashion, prints, and more. Similarly, the Pergamon Museum (Bodestrasse 3) stretches to the past, but focuses on the ornate beauty of Middle Eastern and Islamic art. After the history lesson, jump forward a few thousand years for your final stop on this artistic walking tour: Kunsthaus Tacheles (Oranienburgerstrasse 53), a massive and towering building that once was a department store and is now a gathering space for cutting-edge current multimedia artists. What are your favorite places to see art in Berlin?

Berlin is a sprawling city, but it's sparsely populated, which is great if it's a quiet spot with a lot of elbow room you're after. Searching for a little more action? Head over to Friedrichshain. A 10-minute taxi ride from The Westin Grand, Berlin, it's a funky neighborhood with a bit of a rock and roll edge. Day or night, you'll always find a mix of both locals and out-of-towners sitting with a tall glass of beer under the wide awning of one of the many sidewalk cafes.

The neighborhood's pastel buildings are awash with street art and graffiti, but don't let irreverent appearances deter you from exploring the myriad shops near Simon-Dach-Strasse and Boxhagenerplatz. One of my favorite stores is called Schwester Herz, which means "Sister Heart" - so cute. It's a beautifully stocked space, brimming with cool design products like Brandenburg Gate cookie cutters and tote bags made from a synthetic fabric developed in the GDR. Around the corner, Olivia offers all sorts of chocolates. Try a few of their miniature cakes and fill your pockets with South American candy bars. One of the area's prettiest streets is Niederbarnimstrasse where you can gawk at Blattwerk's gorgeous floral displays and pick up a silk-screened T-shirt at Heimat. Stick around for dinner and indulge on fabulous Italian food at Miseria e Nobilta, try the "Incredible" pizza at Il Ritrovo, or yummy Vietnamese food at Chily at 17 Niederbarnimstrasse.

If it's a Sunday, most of Friedrichshain's stores will be closed, but  a fantastic flea market brimming with antique treasures sets up on Boxhagenerplatz at 10 in the morning, year round!

Summer days are long in Berlin, and the locals like to spend as many waking hours as they can out in the warm air doing fun activities like drinking tall glasses of Hefeweissen in beer gardens, sunbathing by a swimming pool set inside the River Spree, and watching movies. In fact, there are no less than nine open-air cinemas scattered around the city. Here are a few that are showing English-language movies this summer, and are really easy to reach from The Westin Grand, Berlin.

Five stops on the S-Bahn from Friedrichstrasse will get you to Warschauer Strasse, where just around the corner the Open-Air Cinema Island at Cassiopeia is showing current hits like Vicky Christina Barcelona, documentaries like Spraymasters, and classics like The Wizard of Oz. In a leafy park behind a brick church, Open-Air Cinema Kreuzberg is a ten minute taxi ride from the hotel. One of the city's oldest open-air cinemas, it includes a bar and shows films every night through August. Harold and Maude screens June 1, Slumdog Millionaire, June 6, Burn After Reading, June 12, and The Wrestler, June 24. Five minutes on the U-Bahn, followed by seven on the bus, gets you to Open-Air Cinema Hasenheide where you can cozy up on a long wooden bench and watch Juno and Into the Wild under the stars. What a fun way to spend a summer night. Do you have an open-air cinema in your city that you love?

The Westin Grand, Berlin is a majesic hotel, rising up above busy Friedrichstrasse, just off the leafy promenade known as Unter den Linden. The atmosphere here is impressive, and charged with vitality, embodying everything you'd want in a European capital. But where, you might be wondering, is Berlin's quaint side? Not that far away. Just stroll six blocks south to the Stadtmitte U-Bahn station, hop on the U2, and ride it six stops to Rosenthaler Platz.

Bordered by Prenzlauerberg to the north and MItte to the south, Rosenthaler Platz is surrounded by some of the city's most historic streets and best shops. Before heading out on your excursion, fuel up with a cappuccino at Sankt Oberholz, then head straight down Rosenthaler Strasse. At number 17, the roomy Waahnsinn Warehousing is a second-hand store stocked with DDR era home goods and alligator handbags, and just next door, Fluffy White Pink is a Hello Kitty lover's dream. This wide-laned avenue leads to peaceful cobbled streets like Auguststrasse, where you'll find in't veld, an enticing chocolate shop infused with the exquisite aroma of high-quality cocoa. Grab a few bars, embellished with the brand's ocean liner emblem, and head over to one of the city's most distinctive fashion boutiques, Konk. The small, minimalist store is filled with avant-garde clothing and jewelery by local Berlin designers.

By now it must be time for lunch. Barcomi's Deli and Cafe Bravo (at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art) are both great lunch options located in one of those secret courtyards peppered throughout Berlin. Get replenished and then go explore Rosenthaler Platz's abundance of art, from outside on the street to inside in the galleries.

Berlin is bursting at the seams with new art. But when it comes to the older works, the city can leave a lot to be desired. With its handful of Botticellis, Rembrandts, and Vermeers, the Gemäldegalerie is your best bet for a look at 15th through 19th century masterworks, and now through June 21, a new exhibition brings together over thirty paintings by two extraordinary Flemish artists, the Master of Flémalle and Rogier van der Weyden.

Beneath the low lights of the museum's special exhibition gallery, enchanting images depict heralding angels and serene saints. An exquisite altarpiece from an abbey in Arras, France, dates from the 1430s. Its four panels feature "The Visitation," "The Nativity," "The Adoration of the Magi," and "The Presentation in the Temple" - vivid works, considered some of the best preserved early Netherlandish paintings in existence. Some of the paintings include an extra character, usually dressed in the fur-trimmed attire of the Burgundian court. Who are these mysterious praying men? Well, in the fifteenth century it was common for wealthy families to commission religions paintings for their own private adoration. Often, the commissioner would be included in the work, perhaps kneeling beside the Virgin Mary in a ramshackle stable, worshipping the newly swaddled baby Jesus as in the "Middelburg Altarpiece."

The Gemäldegalerie is just a couple kilometers from The Westin Grand, Berlin. Take the scenic route, down Unter den Linden, then along the Tiergarten, to Potsdamer Platz. The museum is located within the Kultureforum complex and a "Combi-Ticket" gets you entrance to the adjacent Museum of Decorative Arts, the nearby Neue Nationalgalerie, and more of Berlin's fantastic museums.

[image via Museumsportal Berlin]