i stayed on the 38th floor of the marriot hotel. that was quite high.

it had a terrific view of the sunset. pity about the window reflections seemed unbeatable due to the double glazing.

i stayed at this place on my first night in edinburgh. it was great. lots of hand made signs such as these with wordy instructions like this which greeted guests on arrival.

when i read it i thought "this is the right location, but oh dear. perhaps this is not the right hotel (if you want a sensible stay)", but then i thought, "actually, this is fantastic and just wanted i wanted, so it's now definitely the correct hotel". and so it was.

i was in edinburgh for two nights last week.  on the first night i stayed in a B&B and the second night i stayed in a chain hotel.  here's my comparison

 The B&B was called The Terrace Hotel and was on a lovely Georgian listed building in a quiet street in the centre of town.

 the view from the window of the garden out back was lovely too

the room was huge, possibly a little shabby, but i liked that. it was also very quiet.  the ensuite was very small though and you had to climb over the loo to get in the shower.  but that's all part of the fun. and for £45 a night, you can't complain.

 the people who run/own the hotel greeted me on arrival and they cooked the breakfast so it was all lovely and very nice.  and it's got a great staircase (which was a bit of a climb as i was on the 3rd floor)

the next night i stayed at the jury's inn in a refurbished room.  despite it's recent over-haul it was still shabby - wobbly loo seat, bath that filled up slower than a slow thing, no battery cover on the remote, a lots of buttons on the telly which didn't work.  and the ice machine in the corridor was broken. and my swipe card door key didn't work the first time so i had to have it re-nuked. 

i didn't take a picture of the outside it seems, but it was quite dull.

In the morning the breakfast was a buffet affair which was a scrum fight due to all the coach tours staying there.  this also filled the lifts and all the landings with hundreds of huge bags.  and the staff weren't as friendly as the b&b.  but there were less hand made signs.

the view was a bit rubbish too - i was overlooking the train station which meant lots of announcements and ... er trains ...

but worse still was the road with the red car on below which was cobbled and fast and therefore very noisey !  For just less than twice the cost of the B&B i wasn't impressed. 

all this goes to show that it's worth staying in different hotels on different nights if you are in the same town for more than one night as you can blog about the differences

i've stayed in quite a few hotels in the last few months, and i have to say, one of the best ones ever is the one we stayed at in Vienna over the weekend. it was called the hotel astoria - the staff were great, and the location fantastic. go there.

we were fortunate enough to get put in room 27 which was amazing and consisted of separate sitting room, bedroom and bathroom.

our bedroom

our sitting room

our bathroom

on tuesday night i got to the hotel late and i ate my room service dinner at midnight whilst reading the 'how to stay healthy whilst staying in hotels' guide. strangely enough eating burger and chips, followed by brownie and ice-cream wasn't one of their recommendations.

neither was drinking beer and eating peanuts (whilst looking out over athens) from the hotel roof bar last night.
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this hotel front is very uninviting. every little bit says 'we don't care that much'. i almost want to go and stay to see how bad it is, so perhaps it does work on a certain level !

you can almost taste the breakfast on that plate.

in a world where every hotel is equipped with DVD players, Ipod docking stations and wifi Internet access, it's pleasing to see some hotels are proud of their basics. All rooms have clock radios. brilliant.

look att his great sign. brilliant use of arrows and random words. it's not often you see 'tradesmen's entrance' written down these days.

i'm in brussels for a conference and rather than staying in the expensive hotel where it's being held i decided to do a google for 'strange hotel brussels' and came up with this place i'm staying, which is half the price and twice the fun.

the hotel is called the welcome hotel and is very cool (the photos section of the website shows some of the other room designs)

i'm staying in the tahiti room