Pros:
We booked this hotel for a base to see Bern and Basel. The room was very attractive, though somewhat small. The bathroom was large and well appointed. There was free parking. The hotel is two blocks from the railroad station and the train to Bern ran every 30 minutes. When buying a pass at the RR station (no attendant, just a machine), Stettlen (the town where the hotel is located) is within Zone 10-11. It is a 15 minute train trip into Bern. Staff was very helpful, but some were a bit limited in English. Breakfast was included and was a nice variety of cereals, breads, cheese, meats, juice, coffee, and tea. The rate was 291 CHF for our two nights (exchange rate very low at this time: 0.87 – 0.88 dollars to 1 CHF).
Cons:
There is no elevator – a spiral staircase leads to upper floors. There appeared to be some rooms on the ground floor, so if needed, you could request those. The restaurant food (ie: for dinner) was very expensive – even by Swiss standards – for example a chicken breast dinner was 26 CHF and that included only the entrée – no salad, soup, etc. If you have an all day train pass, it makes more sense to go back into Bern for a meal – we had one at the train station which, while not fancy, was plentiful, tasty, and relatively reasonable. Contact the hotel directly for better directions – the ones on the booking paper and what I did on Mapquest were useless. We found a family walking in a nearby town with a child who spoke English – the child was able to translate and give us directions – otherwise, would have never found this place. Many streets and roads are not well marked (major highways are) – but finding street signs is almost impossible. Going by train is not a problem, just get off at Kloten, turn right from the RR station and cross the main street – the hotel is right there.
Recommendation:
For an expensive area such as Bern (the capital of Switzerland), this was a nice and relatively reasonably priced hotel. Travel back and forth from Bern is very convenient via the nearby train station.