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Green in the City :: The Independent Rounds Up "Best Urban Garden Hotels"

A city stay usually means you're not getting too much in the way of trees and flowers, and we often think that's a shame. Which is why the UK Independent list of urban garden hotels got us especially interested.

We like the sound of the Hotel de Russie in Rome: eat dinner on the terrace and you're surrounded by trees: palm, pine, cypress, magnolia, lemon and orange, apparently.

A place we're surprised to hear about greenery is Tokyo, but the Hotel New Otani Tokyo is actually situated in 10 acres of gardens that belonged to some feudal lord 400 years back, and naturally the obligatory ponds full of bright orange carp are there.

And finally, in Portuguese capital Lisbon, the Pestana Palace appeals to us mainly because the guy who built it in the early 1900s was a cocoa king; but also because the gardens are grand enough to have been declared a national monument. Can't get much greener than that.

[Photo of Pestana Palace: Tones100]

Tags: Lisbon Hotels / Portugal Hotels / Hotel Development / → All Tags

Are Developers Turning Lisbon Into the New Manhattan?

Um, not quite. But the Portuguese capital is in the midst of massive hotel development, with 37 new hotels debuting in Lisbon and its surrounding area through 2011.

Four- and five-star hotels are popping up in cities outside Lisbon like Sintra, Óbidos and Estoril. In the nearby Algarve region, 10 projects are underway, including the five-hotel, 17,500-bed property Vilamoura XXI and the five-star hotel and Jack Nicklaus golf resort, Monte Rei.

If you're booking a trip to Portugal next year, you might want to check into one of several new hotels set to open throughout 2009, like the Pousada do Porto - Palácio do Freixo, in Porto; the CS Oporto Vintage Hotel, a converted port warehouse in Delaforce/Gran Cruz; and finally, the Hotel do Vinho do Porto, currently being built in Gaia amongst Port wine lodges.

Of course, if you do go, let us know about it. It may be a year away, be we're a little Type A and don't mind the advanced notice.  

[Photo: flydime]

Tags: Monica Guy / Lisbon Hotels / → All Tags

A Hotel Finally Manages to Satisfy Ms. Monica Guy

Where: Rua Duque de Palmela, 32, 1250-098 , Lisbon, Portugal

Monica Guy, our own younger, blonder, more attractive but still curmudgeonly version of Andy Rooney has returned to us once more. This time, she's giving us the lowdown on the Lisbon hotel scene. Also, we left her bolded words in place to show how frustrated she gets. Enjoy.

Here's an award we sorely need: the hotel that does what a hotel ought to do without making an almighty fuss.

The 4-star Hotel Aviz, Lisbon, wins at least a runner-up prize in that. We stayed there after turning up our noses at the booby hotel Bairro Alto.

Clean, comfy beds, plenty of room, nice quilt. Good shower, bath, a few useful toiletries, a small buffet of nice breakfast-food. In a nice area, next to a metro station and a taxi rank and on the airport side of town. Free internet and a big TV. Sauna and steam room, polite and friendly multi-lingual staff and a bottle of port on the front desk.

A website that doesn't pipe stupid music down the line at you. There's not much more to say. But what more can you want?

[Photo:JDFlynn]

Related Stories:
· The Worst Five-Star Hotel: Lisbon's Bairro Alto Hotel [HotelChatter]
· Monica Guy [HotelChatter]

Tags: Monica Guy / Lisbon Hotels / Worst Five-Star Hotels / → All Tags

The Worst Five-Star Hotel: Lisbon's Bairro Alto Hotel

Where: Praça Luís de Camões 2, Bairro Alto, Lisbon, Portugal

Monica Guy, our own younger, blonder, more attractive but still curmudgeonly version of Andy Rooney has returned to us once more. This time, she's giving us the lowdown on the Lisbon hotel scene. Also, we left her bolded words in place to show how frustrated she gets. Enjoy.

We should set up a new prize - the Worst 5-star Hotel in the World. A booby prize for the hotel where you pay the most money for the poorest facilities, worst food and rudest service.

Here's a candidate: the Bairro Alto Hotel, Lisbon, Portugal. A 5-star, 5-floor joke of a boutique hotel.

The website claims it's in a "privileged location" at the "junction of 2 emblematic districts." Décor's been done over by various wannabe and has-been artists to make it a "fusion of old and new." Actually it's an unassuming canary-yellow building in a noisy traffic-filled square. The décor's nothing special - stuffy and dark.

"Elegant, intimate, very personal" must refer to the lift, except that the first word's not quite accurate. Crueller reviewers might say it's designed only for anorexics with no luggage.

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