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The NYT Gets All Cinematic at Hotel Astoria7 in San Sebastián

Where: Sagrada Familia 1 , San Sebastián , Spain, 20010

If you were in New York at all over the weekend, you would have noticed the throngs of European tourists enjoying our thoroughly American holiday that is Black Friday—we mean Thanksgiving. To return the favor and send American tourists back their way, The New York Times profiles a European hotel—Hotel Astoria 7 in San Sebastián, Spain—in its latest Check In, Check Out review.

The first thing we learn from the Gray Lady is that while San Sebastián “may best be known for stars of the gastronomic variety,” it is also a cinematic center, and the Astoria7 is happy to indulge in this theme. A handwritten sign above the reception desk even reads, “Which star will stay with you tonight?” (If we answer, will room service send them up?)

Highlights: The hotel is just one block from the main bus terminal and close to central bars and shops. The Times enjoyed a double standard room with “a dash of 1950s-style Modernist panache” (mock-Danish midcentury modern furniture and fabric accents that “recalled the set of Mad Men. The cafeteria downstairs does “an excellent Spanish-style buffet breakfast (toast with tomato, hams of various incarnations, yogurts, fresh fruits, eggs on request)”— free with the room—while room service was cheap (16 euros) and “arrived in 14 minutes, hot and perfectly prepared.”

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Hotel Amara Plaza Tells You To Keep Your Stuff In Check

Um, we're not quite sure what the purpose of this special little card from the Hotel Amara Plaza San Sebastian in Spain is, really — but the photographer, gruntzooki, didn't seem too sure either — he titled this pic (appropriately) "inexplicable card advising of correct luggage storage."

Um, why is this here? Is this like, a thing in Spain? Or does the hotel just want you to keep your room neat and tidy? You know, so the housekeeping staffers don't trip and fall and hurt themselves while they're trying to clean up?

We dunno about this. Some of us here at HC like to open our suitcase upon arrival, rifle through it to get what we need, decide we aren't in the hotel long enough to make unpacking "worth it" — and so we allow our bag to look like it exploded all over the room and we sort of leave it that way.

But we guess we'd have to change our ways and keep it confined to the closet. The horror.

[Photo: gruntzooki]