Location fantastic! Centrally located, right across the street from an Adult Bookstore and hooker alley.

Their website gave you the impression that the entire building was the hostel, and the lovely lobby would be cozy and inviting. The lobby's only use was as a walk through to the stairs & lift. And the beautiful fountain courtyard, locked behind glass doors, and not open to the guests.

The friendly staff provided me with freshly laundered cleaning rags to use as towels. They then escorted me to my room.

After the door closed behind me, I was literally in shock for 10 minutes before I could do anything. I've seen bigger prison cells on tv newscasts. The room also had no airconditioning in a city know for it's summer heat.

The tiny bed was shoved up against the wall. There was no closet or wardrobe. At the foot of the bed, in front of the door, was a metal rack commonly found in restaurant kitchens to be used for clothes. A few coathangers dangling from one of the shelves was the coatrack.

The sumptious breakfast advertised in their dinning room. Turned out to be just a counter in the hallway instead. Luckily there was a handful of stools that their entire guests could take turns sharing.

I've stayed in hostals that have been lovely. This isn't it!

How a place like this can be rated 4 stars is beyond me.

Don't get lured by the price of the room. It's not a good value for your money. In this case, you don't get what you pay for.

Sometimes these cheaper places are a gamble. La Fontana was a crap shoot.

I crapped out and The House won!

We were actually looking forward to the Fontana as the pictures on the website looked so nice. Wow, what a shock. Always remember to SEE the room first. It was not much more than a hallway for the room with a sagging bed, torn towels, a shower stall so small if you turned around you truned off the water. You had to sit on the toilet sideways as the heater was in front of it. No soap, and when you opened the window to a light well the smell of rancid fat wafted in. I learned a hard lesson...always see what you are buying. We walked out 118 euros poorer and they on top charged again for the room after we left. Avoid this place like the plague!

....just got home after three nights in Madrid. Don't hesitate to take the Metro from the airport, its clean, frequent, tickets cheap (1 euro for one journey), ticket machines in English, easy to navigate.
La Fontana Hostal is clean, smallish rooms, TINY ensuite shower room. Friendly staff, open 24 hours a day, they were happy to look after our bag on our last day after we had checked out, but before we left for the airport. Beds made/room cleaned/towels replaced daily. Radiators and also spare blankets in the wardrobe. Ceiling fan for the summer. Very central position, (practically on Grand Via) easy to find and you can pretty much walk everwhere from it. Slight downside were the 'working girls' outside, although these are to be seen day and night on a few different streets around the city.
We had a balcony and luckily there was a double glazed door as there is a lot of noise from the street (I think there were some rooms that faced 'inwards' if you prefer). Spanish multi channel tv too.
All in all, good value for money, nothing to complain about. We paid 50 euros per night for a double room (Nov 05).....