I have just returned from a 4-day trip staying at the Principe Pio.

First the good news - the rooms seem to have been renovated fairly recently (probably last few years), although there are the occasional defects (mould on seal around bath, etc.) and it faces the Royal palace, so a great position for tourism.

Now the bad - I stayed here with a group of work colleagues - all of those who had rooms on the back of the hotel slept like a log - without exception, those of us on the front of the Hotel got a maximum of 2-3 hours' sleep.

The basic problem is that the Principe Pio sits right on top of a major road, so when the traffic is moving, there is a wall of noise which hits every room on the front of the hotel, no matter which floor you are on (two of us were on the 5th. Floor) - the only time that sleep is possible is when the traffic dies down (between around 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. - after 5 there is an odd effect - there is a rush of traffic, then silence for a few minutes, then another rush of traffic - basically the silence is when the traffic-lights are on red !

It is clear that attempts have been made to rectify this problem - the windows have some of the biggest double-glazing units that I have ever seen, which originally must have had metal shutters in the middle of the two panes, presumably to cut down on light and noise - those shutters have since been removed and all that the large gap between the panes seems to do is to amplify the noise.

The hotel could, of course, fit heavy, thick curtains to try to reduce the noise, but the curtains they have are some of the thinnest that I have seen.

We did, of course, try to change rooms, but not surprisingly, all of the rooms at the back of the Hotel were taken for the whole of our stay - when telling us this, the receptionist had the strangest of wide smiles !!!

We had planned to use this Hotel as the standard base for our regular visitors to our Madrid Head Office - instead, it will be placed on the growing black-list of hotels never to be used under any circumstances.

If you value your sanity (sleep-deprivation can do strange things to the most stable of people) avoid this Hotel at all costs !!!