I wrote this review because if you travel casually, that is, without a plan and just for the fun of it, you may sooner or later find yourself in some little European town that is neither a tourist trap nor a business center and need a room for the night.

That's what happened to us in the small Belgium city of Stavelot. Stavelot is about an hour South East of Brussels, so we could have driven to the big city and stayed in some fancier and more expensive hotel, but we like the countryside and had driven around the area all day. We picked the Hotel D' Orange because it was mentioned in one of our tourbooks as having an interesting history and a clever concierge, whom, buy the way, we never met or saw.

Nothing spectacular here. Modest accomodations. Reasonable prices. Creaky stairs and unlit hallways. The room was clean. The bed was comfortable. A double with bath for one night in September, 2006, was 92 Euros.

The hotel is on a side street and the area was... more