'The Weirdest Hotel In The World' Lets You Sleep In A Literal Cage, Among Other Oddities

Propeller Island City Lodge, Berlin | One of the best parts about travelling is narrowing down your choice of accommodation. While budgetary concerns play a big role in travellers’ selection, the rise of themed hotels indicates that a portion of holiday makers are also interested in staying somewhere unique, immersive and memorable.

Want to sleep in a white coffin or a literal cage? Use a toilet that is hidden inside a wooden wardrobe? Spy on your neighbours with a one-way mirror?

Enter Berlin’s Propeller Island City Lodge, which claims to be “the weirdest hotel in the world.” Designed by artist Lars Stroschen, who publishes audiovisual creations under the pseudonym “Propeller Island,” this 30-room hotel is an aesthetic sensation for the eyes and ears.

Put simply, this hotel is like tumbling down the rabbit hole in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

History Of The Propeller Island City Lodge

In December 1997, Storschen rented out rooms in his Berlin home to supplement his income. Eschewing a traditional layout, he created four uniquely themed rooms for his guests: the Symbol Room, the Orange Room, the Castle Room, and the Mirrors Room.

As the hotel's popularity grew, Strochen purchased vacant space in the same building, and in 1998 began designing 27 new guest rooms. The first and second floors were opened in 2001, while the third floor was completed in August 2002.

Unique Stay In Berlin, Germany

The hotel's official website says that the accommodation is “not one of those trendy designer hotels” but “more like a private planet which has evolved in unique synchronicity with the tastes of its inventor.” Curiously, the designer has used zero plastic and papier-mâché in their creations.

Each room is considered more a work of art than a practical living space, and many are furnished with damageable or fragile materials. Guests are provided with a manual outlining specific rules for the care of their room's decorative touches. The rooms are not equipped with television or commercial radio, but there is a sound system featuring soundscapes recorded by Strochen.

Rooms At The Propeller Island City Lodge

Each room comes with varying prices. Here are some of the most notable ones you can stay in:

• Freedom: This is designed as a prison cell with a hole in the wall. The toilet is in the room, but according to the website, “it's extremely comfortable.” It comes with a balcony.

• Grandma’s: This room has antique décor and the bathroom is concealed in the room's wardrobe. The bed is extremely old, like everything else here.

• Padded Cell: Everything in the room, from top to bottom and all around the bed, is upholstered with green leather, reminiscent of a psychiatric hospital.

• Gruft: A Goth-inspired room with twin white coffin beds and a labyrinth underneath.

• Landscapes: With its various rounded forms, octogonal ceiling illumination, and light-flooded landscape and cloud pictures, the Landscape Room is one of the most aesthetically pleasing quarters in the hotel.

• Chicken Curry: The Chicken Curry Room possesses an India-inspired appeal. The exceptionally bright and empty room can be utilised as a photographer's studio or shooting location with its gigantic lighting boxes and roll-out backdrops. Gentle pink walls compensate the chromatic tints of the brilliantly luminous neon tubes. The bed is located in the floor beneath a “garage gate.”

• Nudes: This room is decorated with nude art. It also has a sandstone bathroom, lilac-toned walls and velvet curtains.

• Two Lions: Here, dual cages rest on stilts measuring 1.5 m tall, similar to a zoo or circus train. The roomy bathroom has a toilet that sits atop a tower and permits peeks into a golden bathtub. Kids love to sleep in the cages, otherwise the room is for two.

• Nightlight: The wild brush strokes of abstractly painted murals surround and adorn the mirrored aperture to the goings-on next door. The bathroom is a gigantic plastic bag.

The Information | Propeller Island City Lodge, Berlin

How can I reach Propeller Island City Lodge?

Take a flight to Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) and a 30-minute taxi ride to the Propeller Island City Lodge, which is 28 km away. The address is Albrecht-Achilles-Straße 58, 10709.

What is the price for a room at the Propeller Island City Lodge, Berlin?

Each room is priced differently. The cheapest room, Freedom, at Propeller Island City Lodge is priced at EUR 79 or roughly INR 7,650 per person.

When is the best time to visit Berlin?

May to September is the best time to visit Berlin so that you can enjoy the good weather, sunshine and moderate temperatures. The days are long and the evenings are calm and warm.