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

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

| November 26, 2007 at 10:12 AM | 1 Comment

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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