We wanted to like this hotel, but it consistently let us down. The hotel was centrally located in the Old City of town. It is on the main pedestrian street filled with shops, restaurants, and other tourists. It is about a 10 minute walk to the tram to the castle and main plaza. The location was great for walking and sight-seeing, although a bit inconvenient for parking; the street was pedestrian only, so we had to park in a parking lot about a 5-10 minute walk away (that didn’t have an elevator) and pull our bags to the hotel. The parking cost 13 euros per night.

You check in with the friendly Irish bartender at the bar. There is no reception area, just the bar. However, once you get your key, there is a separate entrance for hotel guests so you do not always have to go in and out through the bar. The rooms were clean and basic with little décor, just the necessities, which was fine. The bathroom and the shower were quite small, but clean. The bed was comfortable. We had room #4 which faced the street, we were warned that you hear a little more noise there than in the internal rooms. There is a small balcony and nice views.

There is no elevator and steep stairs. And the hallways are dark and dilapidated. There is no air conditioning, so you had to keep the windows open, which let in more noise, but you would have had to do the same in the internal rooms. Breakfast is not included. The continental breakfast cost 12 euros – we did not have the breakfast, so I can’t speak to that. The bar offers a 10% discount on food and drinks purchased in the bar.

Two things really let us down about this hotel. First, no matter where you stay in the hotel (internal or external) there is noise late into the night and starting early. While the bar prohibits drinking outside after 11pm, smokers still go out there and are loud. Also, there is noise from the pub that comes up the stairwell and disturbs. Closing the windows does not alleviate the noise. The noise from the bar subsides around 1-2pm. The pedestrian road is open to delivery and construction trucks starting at 7am, so five hours after the bar noise ends, loud engines and construction noise begins and wakes you up. If you choose to stay here, I hope you are a sound sleeper or have earplugs.

The other thing that let us down was how they treated a shirt we accidentally left behind. They found the shirt and immediately called us about it, which was quite refreshing. After a few emails back and forth (with a prompt response), we decided to return to Heidelberg because it was on our way back from our trip and only 45 minutes out of the way to pick up the shirt. The manager said he would keep it behind the bar. However, he hung the shirt on a coat hook in the middle of the customer seating area, for an entire week, making the shirt accessible to anyone who entered the pub. We returned to get the shirt and were told that the shirt had disappeared yesterday and they didn’t know where it was. It was quite disappointing to go out of our way to get the shirt that we knew they were keeping for us, only to find that the manager had been irresponsible and disrespectful to our belongings resulting in a stolen shirt.

I don’t know if I would recommend this hotel. It is a great price for the location and the staff is friendly. However, the noise is quite disturbing and they demonstrated that they don’t have respect for their hotel guests’ belongings. We wanted to like the hotel, but in the end, it left us tired and disappointed.