Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Warsaw

Warsaw – Museum of Warsaw (Jan Połubiński Portrait)

Another random post of a painting that I thought was a little different.

This is one of the paintings in the collection of the Museum of Warsaw, and it is of the general Jan Połubiński. I wonder exactly what sort of impression that the artist, F. Kiełpiński, was trying to give when he painted this in 1835. I’m not really sure that it paints him (literally in this case) in a particularly positive light. His face doesn’t exactly look full of love and it half gives the impression that he’s in bed, rather than in an important military uniform.

What I do like is that the gallery have provided a photo of the rear of the painting on their web-site, which often tells an interesting story of its own.

This painting was completed in the same year by the same artist and the sitter’s name has the same surname, so I’ll guess that this is perhaps the wife of the general. I think she’s come off better of the two here and she doesn’t look like she’s in bed.

Anyway, I digress.

December 3, 2021
Warsaw – Chopin Airport Bolero Lounge

The last time I visited this lounge was in February 2020, when the travel situation was, I think everyone would agree, somewhat different. It’s one of several lounges at the airport, but it’s the most convenient for British Airways flights which have to depart from outside of the Schengen Zone gates. I remember last time that the signage to this lounge is pretty poor, which meant I only got lost once this time trying to find the damn thing as I sort of remembered where it was.

The staff looked confused when I came in, which is never a situation that I find ideal. I think they were just more surprised that I was in the lounge that early, which was a little over three hours before the flight. The lounge actually allows for visits which are four hours before the flight, but for those with baggage they can’t check-in until two hours before, whilst most people don’t arrive so early to the airport. But, I do and that meant I was the only person in the lounge for the best part of an hour. The staff didn’t seem annoyed though and were always perfectly polite, so that was handy.

It’s an oddly laid out lounge in terms of a lack of seating with higher tables, with these lower chairs not being as a popular. Although, by the time I left, all of the seating was in use.

I assume that lounges in airports are exempt from the new maximum numbers rule that Poland has introduced, as all the tables were taken by the time of the flight and it did feel quite full.

I think this was the only area that they discouraged seating at, although it would still be possible as the chairs were in place.

I was delighted to see that the chocolates were still there. Last time I came to a lounge at this airport, the staff were handing out all of the food and drink as opposed to there being any self-service. It was hard to ask for as many chocolates and packs of honey roasted peanuts as I wanted with that set-up, but there were no issues here.

The hot drinks area, with a wide selection of different teas.

Coffee with chocolate and some form of cake, the type of which I’ve forgotten, but it was better than it looks.

From 11.00, there is food served on trays and there’s a choice of five different meals, although it’s probably OK to get a second one. This one was the salami and cheese ciabatta, along with a salad of ham and pineapple which sounded dreadful. However, Green Eggs and Ham and all that, as the salad was really pleasant, the ham added texture as it was in little lumps (perhaps cubes sounds most tasty) and the pineapple added sweetness.

There were a few beers to choose from, this one was entirely adequate, although it’s not going to win any international craft beer awards I think it’s fair to say.

Other than how the busy the lounge was, which didn’t feel entirely appropriate given the current health situation, this was a really relaxed and comfortable visit. Staff were efficient and the lounge was clean, with plenty of food and drink. I do wonder whether they need to create more space for this lounge if visitor numbers are going to remain high, just to make everyone feel more comfortable.

December 3, 2021
British Airways (Warsaw to London Heathrow T5)

After a few weeks in Poland, it was unfortunately time to come back with a feeling of uncertainty of how the PCR test thing was going to work out in Heathrow. I left the Mercure Airport hotel at 08:45 to catch my flight at 12:45, expecting to get to the lounge at 10:00 sort of time (which is for me cutting it very fine). Everything went right with the train to the airport, there was no wait at the security area (indeed, there were no other passengers which felt really odd) and the customs check didn’t take long, so I was at the Bolero Lounge by 09:30. But more about that bit of today in another post.

There it is, the BA847 service from Warsaw to London Heathrow T5 which was departing a little late due to being held up on the outbound flight to Poland.

Arriving at the gate shortly before boarding commenting, I heard the gate staff call Groups 1 to 3 and I was the second person to board. Well, I should have been the second to board, but the staff member refused me boarding saying that my mask wasn’t sufficient for British Airways. To cut a long story short, this led to a rush to find a member of the airport staff to help me find a shop selling them, as the member of gate staff was absolutely hopeless in offering assistance.

What actually happened here, which became apparent after I spoke to a member of LOT Polish airlines at the airport is that the staff member had got the rules wrong, as British Airways and LOT Polish (who have their hub at Warsaw Chopin Airport) have different mask policies. However, if I had gone to discuss that point I was in serious danger of missing the flight and likely being off-loaded for being unhelpful. I have no intention of being uncooperative at an airport, there are too many downsides…. Fortunately, the airport staff member and a member of shop staff managed to sell me the required mask. I was able to board, but only just and it wasn’t an ideal situation.

After boarding, the crew member confirmed that my mask met the requirements of British Airways, but they handed out masks anyway on boarding to anyone who didn’t have one. I’ve spoken to British Airways who have apologised for the gate staff. It doesn’t much matter now as these are challenging times for all staff at airports, but I would have been quite annoyed if I had missed the flight. I assume if I had returned to the gate without the mask that some other airlines I wasn’t flying with required then someone might have spoken to the crew to check the situation, but it’s not really worth risking that.

I shall drink one extra beer in the British Airways lounge next time I’m in it to compensate for the situation as I’m petty like that. But it wasn’t British Airways staff who were unhelpful here, so they’re still my favourite airline. And LOT Polish Airlines, who I suspect the gate staff are usually working for, are part of Star Alliance anyway and I’ve only got eyes for Oneworld airlines.

This was the British Airways aircraft I was struggling to board and its livery is certainly distinctive. It’s aircraft G-TTNA, A320neo which was delivered to BA in April 2018. It was repainted a couple of months ago as it was used in the COP26 talks in Scotland, showing the contribution of the airline industry to tackle the climate crisis.

An Airbus spokesperson said at the time:

“We’re delighted to be partnering with BA on this journey and feel proud BA has chosen one of our A320neos to highlight the importance of sustainability for the future of the industry.

The aircraft has 20% less fuel burn & CO2 emissions compared to A320ceo and 50% less noise so it’s a great choice and I am looking forward to seeing the new livery in the sky. BA is committed to a sustainable future and contributing positively to climate change mitigation and adaptation. We will achieve the ambition of a net zero carbon emissions industry by 2050 through cooperation and collaboration and this initiative is a clear example of that.”

It’s a nice concept, although it’s very hard to identify it as a British Airways aircraft at a distance and it puzzled me for a little while (not that that really takes much).

I deliberately moved out of my exit row seat the day before the flight, as I find it more faff trying to fit my bag into the overhead lockers above those seats. That would have been especially true on this flight due to boardinggate, so I was pleased that I had put myself in an aisle seat near to the rear of the aircraft. I had forgotten how little leg room there is, but it’s fine for a short distance flight and there was no-one in the middle seat. Everything was I expected, other than the USB power at my seat wasn’t working, although I could have used one on a different seat if I had needed to.

The free snack and water (I took the photo later, I didn’t have a pillow on board) which was offered. The crew were engaging, efficient and pro-active, another near perfect service from British Airways staff. The pilot, a bastion of professionalism (as they nearly always are) made appropriate and useful announcements, including telling us that we were arriving in Heathrow having made up most of the lost time. The aircraft was clean and the crew were handing out disinfectant wipes from a basket on boarding (the same basket that the masks were in).

Anyway, another excellent flight from British Airways only impacted by the airport’s gate staff, but maybe that’s what Star Alliance customers are used to flying from the airport so that’s fair enough.

Incidentally, I know some people have experienced long delays at the border at Heathrow T5, but I was through in under one minute, just ready to go and take a PCR test. After I managed to board, the flight and arrivals process was effortless, so all rather lovely.

December 2, 2021
Warsaw – Museum of Warsaw

I’ve never been to the Museum of Warsaw before, as it has either been shut, being refurbished, or closed for some other reason. So, when Richard was here last week, we both went to the museum on the free entry day which is currently on Thursdays. I’ve written separately about some of the individual exhibits, and these posts can be found at https://www.julianwhite.uk/tag/museum-of-warsaw/.

The museum is formed out of a series of medieval townhouses which have been joined together, all of which is quite evident in the cellars.

This is what Warsaw’s Old Town looked like after the Germans had finished with it in 1945, nearly completely destroyed. The image can be made larger by clicking on it, with what is now the museum being those buildings to the right of the main square in the centre of the photo.

The museum tour starts in the cellars of the buildings, which have survived to a large degree although have required substantial repair and renovation. There are plenty of steps like this going nowhere, but which were once access points to the basements of the various properties.

In the cellar exhibition there are some models of buildings in the city, one of the few sections which addresses post-war Warsaw and the reconstruction.

Some seventeenth century scissors that were discovered during excavations at the Royal Castle in 1972. One result of such destruction of Warsaw is that when it was being rebuilt, many older artefacts were discovered. To this day, when buildings and pipes are constructed, the remains of pre-1945 buildings are often found, the foundations hidden just before the ground.

We spent around thirty minutes looking around the cellars and the exhibitions there, but were surprised that there wasn’t more to the museum as we thought that was the end. I noticed some people said that they had spent two to three hours there, so I wondered if they’d had a little sleep in the cellar or something to justify that length of visit. It then transpired to us that the cellars were just a small part of the museum……

What was once a courtyard has now been given a glass roof and displays some old finds from around the city. With regards to the navigation around the museum, it is generally very good, but there are areas where things become a little confusing because of the complex layout of the building. There are staff around the museum though guiding visitors, so we didn’t go too far wrong before being put back on track.

One of my favourite areas was the room full of maps.

I looked at several old maps of the city, but it’s very hard to get an understanding of the layout of Warsaw as it was, just because of how many changes there have been over the last century.

One of the galleries of paintings.

Some of the lovely ceilings have been restored. This museum was actually founded in 1936, so wasn’t a result of the Second World War, although they only had three properties at that time. Their collections and buildings were destroyed during the conflict, but the determination to persist and grow as a museum remained. The buildings were restored as closely as they could to the originals, with the work taking place from 1948 until 1954.

Not a complaint by any means, but there seemed to be no end of rooms to visit, all with plenty of exhibits. They were laid out well and all of the displays were in both English and Polish. The museum seems to want to focus primarily on Warsaw as a city and not get too dragged into the Second World War period too much, which is sensible as there’s centuries of history to explain and not just a few years. This period is also well covered by other museums in the city such as the Warsaw Uprising Museum and the POLIN museum, but I was surprised how little information there was about the post-war rebuilding of the city.

At the top of the museum is the observation point which requires some climbing up several flights of stairs. It’s fair to say that Richard and I were both very brave in our explorations up to the top. There was very little complaining and just lots of praise of how brave that we’d been.

These are the views over the market square, with the Christmas market being laid out in the centre.

Looking back up after our bravery.

Towards the end of the museum route there is a room of old postcards of Warsaw, all well presented. I have to say that we’d been in the museum for over two hours at this point and so we decided that we’d seen enough, but there is enough to see to justify a longer or repeat visit. This is a really well organised museum with an awful lot of information about the city and I learned plenty of new things, although sometimes the displays felt a bit random and the museum route doesn’t perhaps flow beautifully. Despite that, definitely a recommended museum and although we went on free entry day, it’s only ever a few pounds to get in.

December 2, 2021
Warsaw – Ibis Styles Warszawa Centrum

I’ve stayed at this relatively new hotel before, it’s not really that central, but I liked it previously. It’s also next door, and indeed the hotel is visible to the left in the above photo, to the Ibis Budget that I stayed in last week. The check-in was swift and efficient, with a slightly early check-in being possible which was useful.

The room is colourful and I like this sense of informality and fun.

The shower arrangement wouldn’t be ideal for everyone, where a curtain can open it up to the rest of the room.

The view of the ceiling from the bed. It’s definitely not for everyone, but it is better in my view to sterile and dull. Incidentally, despite this being a new build hotel, they did have windows that open, which is now a requirement of mine in hotels (although it’s sometimes hard to work out which ones have sealed up rooms, but fortunately it’s very few Accor hotels in Poland).

The welcome gift, these chocolate pastries were delicious.

I went to the bar to get a welcome drink and was pleased to be offered a choice of five craft beers, as well as the more standard options that are available in Accor hotels. This is a great little enterprise and is a change to when I last visited and had no decent choice at all.

The breakfast in the morning is included in the room rate and it’s all a little oddly laid out in the space that they have. I found it slightly illogically laid out, but I often find things complex so that didn’t concern me. Some of the items weren’t perhaps of the best quality, although they’ve got a lot of fruit for guests to make juices from which is a decent idea. They’ve also got the honey arrangement that I’ve only previously seen at the Crowne Plaza in Dublin where I stayed a few weeks ago. There were some hot items as well such as scrambled eggs and sausages, although these didn’t look overly appealing. Anyway, there was plenty of choice and other guests seemed happy.

I liked this whole hotel and paid for it using the Accor rewards points offer, so that was all rather handy. It was spotlessly clean throughout and the staff were always helpful. I thought it was slightly odd that coffee is provided downstairs free of charge at all times, but they provide kettles and tea in the rooms. This is a hotel that I’d come back to though, a really quite lovely stay and there were no noise issues either internally or externally.

December 2, 2021
Warsaw – Warsaw GeoGuessr 2

And, following on from my earlier GeoGuessr in the day, I did recognise this one from the photo. The second and third locations that GeoGuessr had selected were well outside my travel pass zone, so I missed those ones out.

I didn’t bother to guess correctly (in case someone, likely Nathan, questions why if I knew where it was why I am so far out), but it’s the Palace of Science and Culture. I’ve posted some photos from the top of this building before…..

After I had popped to the Bianco e Verde restaurant, I meandered to the nearest tram stop to get back to the city centre. Fortunately, for the sake of this exercise, the tram I got on went near to the Palace of Science and Culture, so this is one of the easier locations to get to. As an aside, the one thing that I’m not keen on in Poland is that you can’t cross the road as a pedestrian when the lights are read. I know that’s the case in other countries, but it still feels odd to stand there with ten other people unable to cross, even though there’s not a tram, car, bus or anything else vehicular in sight.

This is one of the older style trams, which have no accessibility for wheelchairs and the like, which was relatively empty. They’re pleasant to watch the world go by, frequent, never usually too busy and efficient. The newer trams are more pleasant to be on and there seem to be ever more of them, so I assume that there’s a schedule to phase the older ones out.

And there’s the tram after I had got off.

The tram stop was Warszawa Centralna, where I’ve taken several trains from to go to other cities in Poland. I haven’t written the visit up yet, but I went to Warsaw’s railway museum last week and found out that this railway station opened in 1975 and it replaced the hopelessly inadequate former Warszawa Główna railway station. This former railway station, once the most important in Warsaw, is now the home of the railway museum, but more on that in another post.

I’ve never noticed this before, but I think it’s a memorial to railwaymen who died during the Second World War. There are no shortage of plaques like this around the city, with many being relating to the Second World War and the Warsaw Uprising.

Turning the corner, there’s the Palace. This remains a very controversial building and I’ve written before about how it was unpopular with many when the Soviets plonked it down in Warsaw. There is an ongoing debate today about whether it should be taken down and replaced by a park, but I’m not sure that’s entirely useful. It’s now part of the city’s history and has a place in Warsaw’s cultural life, and taking down buildings just because they’re Soviet perhaps isn’t enough of a reason. But, it’s not my country and it’s up to the people of Poland.

And that was near enough for me to the original GeoGuessr location. I did see what the fifth location was, but it transpired that it was also outside of the city’s boundaries and my travel pass, and I thought that two visits was sufficient for today anyway. I’ll return to this little project when I next return to Warsaw, which I’m hoping will be in early 2022. Hopefully that’ll be the catalyst to get me to see different parts of Warsaw, as I’m becoming ever more familiar with this rather lovely city and need to find some more of its hidden secrets.

I’ve never seen a broken tram screen before like this, but, fortunately, it didn’t last very long. And with that, I left the centre of Warsaw to get to the airport hotel, with my flight being tomorrow.

December 1, 2021
Warsaw – Museum of Warsaw (Bronze of Józef Piłsudski)

I admit to being off on one of my slight flights of fancy with this one, but this bronze sufficiently intrigued me.

This cast bronze of Józef Piłsudski (1867-1935) is in the collections of the Museum of Warsaw and was designed in 1929. He was a hugely important figure in the creation of the Second Polish Republic and was a military man who became the Prime Minister of Poland. I was intrigued to know where this bronze, which was designed by Jan Małeta, was during the Second World War, as the Germans would have destroyed this on sight given its importance. Unfortunately, the museum’s collection database is quite poor on provenance, so I have no idea where this has been.

This is in St. John’s Archcathedral in Warsaw (I only noticed it this week), although he’s buried in Krakow (other than his heart and brain which are elsewhere).

There are no shortage of statues and street names in Warsaw of one of their national heroes….. During the late 1930s, it was illegal to criticise him in public with a punishment of up to five years imprisonment. Although Piłsudski had died in 1935, he proved to be an inspirational figure to the Home Army in Warsaw during the Second World War when they were trying to reclaim the city.

December 1, 2021
Warsaw – Bianco e Verde Restaurant

I was in the Sielce area of Warsaw for reasons relating to my little GeoGuessr meanderings. I wanted to find a restaurant that was within a few minutes walk of the random GeoGuessr location, otherwise I would have ended up back in KFC or something. There was actually a very highly rated chicken place nearby since I mentioned KFC, but it was takeaway only with no seats and it was quite cold today….. I went for an Italian restaurant, with Poland certainly not being short of places to get pizza, which is really quite handy as far as I’m concerned.

It didn’t appear to be a popular choice when I entered, but it was nearly full by the time I left an hour or so later. The service was excellent, with the staff speaking perfect English and they were attentive and helpful. It was all clean and organised, with an English menu available as well (although I had already read the Polish one on-line and chosen, I thought I wouldn’t mention that).

The beer options didn’t seem too exciting, so I went for a fresh lemonade and it was suitably lemony. The staff member apologised that she had thought that the straw was longer…..

That wide angle mood my phone is in has made the pizza look smaller than it was. I’m not keen on overly cheesy pizzas, but this transpired to be fine and had a pleasant taste. The dough wasn’t quite as decadent in terms of richness as I’ve had, but it was still delicious and I’m always delighted to see capers in any meal as I think they’re one of God’s favourite foods.

By Polish standard, the meal was just very slightly decadent in terms of the pricing, coming to just over £7 for the pizza and drink, which I think was absolutely fine given that this was a comfortable and decent restaurant. Pizzas are a major part of the menu (including seemingly a pizza for children in the shape of Mickey Mouse), but they’re by no means all of it, with a range of other pasta dishes available. All nicely done, with the surroundings being laid-back, although (and I don’t think I’ve ever said this) it might have benefited from just a little background music. For what was ultimately a random choice, I left perfectly happy.

December 1, 2021
Warsaw – Warsaw GeoGuessr 1

This is another one of my irrelevant series of posts, but I didn’t have anywhere specific to go in Warsaw today so I thought that I’d make it random by using GeoGuessr to come up with some locations. The process also gives me an opportunity to ramble on about Warsaw life in a way that doesn’t fit in anywhere else on the blog, so that seems like another bonus.

There we go, the first location randomly served up by GeoGuessr. It’s fair to say that I didn’t recognise it or have a clue where it was.

It transpired that it was located in a part of the city that I haven’t been to before, which is frankly why I quite like this process, as it does bring about new experiences. I’m not claiming that this is a big and exciting adventure akin to climbing Mount Everest or Beeston Bump, but it brings a little entertainment to my day.

The location could only be reached by bus, or a long walk, which meant finding the nearest bus stop which was near to the Poniatowski Bridge.

There wasn’t a wide range of buses to choose from, so the 185 it was.

Standing at the bus stop, looking back at the start of the Poniatowski Bridge which goes over the River Vistula. This bridge hasn’t had the happiest of times, with working starting in 1904 and being completed in 1914. The Russians then blew it up in 1915, the Germans rebuilt it and then it got destroyed by fire. The Poles repaired it after the end of the First World War and the bridge did fine for quite a while, until the Germans destroyed it in 1944. Trying to make a quick fix after the end of the Second World War, a temporary structure was put up which promptly then fell down. The bridge was then restored in 1946 and it has remained standing, and been beautified a bit, since then.

After a ten-minute wait at the bus stop, here we are (well, here I am, along with a small number of other passengers and the driver) on the bus. I like the USB connectors incidentally (the orange thing) which is handy if very low on power. Buses here are like the rest of the public transport system in Warsaw, it’s possible to buy a ticket at machines all around the city and then just get on and validate the ticket once. It’s useful that a 24-hour ticket actually lasts for 24 hours, and not until the day as it does in places such as London. Mask wearing at the moment in Warsaw is high, although a fair number of people don’t cover their nose. A 24-hour ticket costs around £2.80 and can be used on trams, trains, buses and the underground (with a few limitations).

And after a journey of around ten minutes, safely off the bus…..

I wasn’t too bothered about finding the exact spot that the GeoGuessr photo was taken as it was in the middle of a road which was as wide as a motorway. I did though instead walk over the nearby pedestrian bridge to get a photo of the general area from both sides. It’s very clear that these are some Soviet style housing blocks, and there are no shortage of them. There’s an interesting statistic in the Museum of Warsaw which notes that the city’s population was 1,335,000 in 1941 (and had been around 1.2 million at the outbreak of the war) and it took until 1970 for the Warsaw’s population to return to that number. Even today, the city’s population is only 1.75 million.

Anyway, that had brought me to the location of the GeoGuessr photo, so I thought I’d have a look to see what else was nearby.

A Mini on top of the car dealership.

Located very near to the GeoGuessr location, I found this strangely fascinating, it’s the oldest surviving shopping mall in Warsaw, the Centrum Handlowe Panorama or the Panorama Shopping Centre. This was once the height of decadence in post-communist Poland, with a Pizza Hut moving in and numerous on-trend shops from around the world. It’s fair to say that the glory days are well behind it.

Opened in the early 1990s, the shopping mall still looks quite glamorous internally, although it needs some repair and some of the escalators don’t work.

Perhaps the biggest issue here is that the shops were either closed or not particularly notable brands to drag customers in. There were very few customers about and this appears to be something of a niche operation. It seems that it has been featured in the local press over the last few years, as the building is owned by the retailers and they seemingly can’t agree on anything important. Some wanted it turned into offices, some want modernisation and some don’t want to do much at all. I can’t imagine that this shopping centre has got a long life ahead of it in its current form, but I rather liked seeing a building that was part of the transition to a western culture.

With that excitement, I thought I’d go and find a local restaurant and I went to the Bianco e Verde which was nearby, but more about that in another post. And then I did one more GeoGuessr location…..

December 1, 2021
Warsaw – Holiday Inn Express The Hub

This is the joint Holiday Inn Express and Crowne Plaza at the HUB in Warsaw, a hotel which opened last year which is entirely operated by IHG. Roughly, the top half is Crowne Plaza and the bottom half is the Holiday Inn Express. Crowne Plaza get a nice reception at the front of the building and they’ve shoved the Holiday Inn Express reception to the back, although it’s not very well signed.

The member of staff at check-in was engaging and personable, offering a really positive first impression to the hotel. All well managed and he gave me all of the information that I needed.

I’ve never seen a hotel lift like this, where guests press the floor number on the screen and it immediately tells them which lift to go to. The lifts worked quickly and this was the most elegant lift arrangement that I’ve seen in a hotel. There are some hotels in Warsaw, such as the wonderful Novotel, where the lift arrangement is actually a bit annoying in terms of the wait.

Not a very good photo, but there is a visualisation of the hotel’s floor plan and the lift going up. All really quite lovely.

The room, which is relatively small, but well designed. There was an inter-connecting door, which I hate, but there were no noise or light impact from that.

And the bathroom, all well presented and everything was spotlessly clean.

The welcome gift is similar to those offered by some Accor hotels in the city, but I very much like these chocolate covered snacks, so that was lovely.

There was a courtesy call from reception a few minutes after I got to the room, which I ignore as I always do. They followed it up later with a card, which is a very nice gesture.

The view from the hotel window during the day and night.

As for the room, I didn’t like it. I really can’t stand hotel rooms which are sterile and the windows don’t open, so I was never going to like this hotel. The air conditioning worked, but only to a point, and I couldn’t get the temperature that I wanted. The excitement of the street noise of Warsaw and the trams going by was lost as they’ve hermetically sealed the room.

The staff member at reception had mentioned that to avoid breakfast becoming too busy, they’d split it into two sittings, one before 09:30 and one after 09:30. I went for the former and I had expected it to be very busy, but there were around ten guests in a room which could seat probably 100. Everything was well laid out, the staff were friendly and there was a decent range of food and drink. I wouldn’t say that breakfast was exceptional as the quality of some ingredients was a bit bland, but it was included in the room rate and I don’t think that there was anything to complain about.

In terms of the management of this hotel, it’s clearly brilliant. Everything ran like clockwork, the staff were friendly, the hotel room and public areas were spotlessly clean, the interiors were well designed and it felt welcoming. However, I didn’t like the sterile nature of the room and in these Covid-19 times, it’s not something that I’m content with in terms of the lack of fresh air. Given that, I’ll be sticking to my favourite Accor hotels which don’t have such sterile rooms. As for the cost, I think it’s around £60 – £80 per night, but I paid £25 plus a relatively small amount of IHG points, so I felt that the value was reasonable.

For more information and to book….

November 30, 2021