Athens – Novotel Athenes
A sleepy bear at the Novotel Athens where I spent three days and I will say in advance that this hotel surprised and delighted me. I was very pleased to discover on arrival that they had upgraded me to a room on the top floor with a balcony and a free mini-bar of soft drinks which would be refilled daily, which is hardly bad when paying under £50 a night. Richard checked in later and they had shoved him on a lower floor and not given him a balcony, but he did have a view of the Acropolis if he looked carefully in the right direction. They gave him two macarons (one of which I had) and some wine to distract him from noticing how small his room was, but I didn’t say anything.
I liked that the receptionist pro-actively told us of the potential problems the next day and it was also signed around the hotel, but more of that later.
The room and it also had a large bathroom that had a bath and shower. I’m not a design expert, but the light colours were cooling and the carpet was clean and seemed a sensible colour to me. That’s it, that’s my design opinion.
The balcony. As one of those people who likes city noise, I rather liked keeping this door open at night. I didn’t have any noise issues internally or externally, indeed, it wasn’t entirely clear how many other guests were actually staying here. There was air conditioning, but I didn’t much need it on which was handy as opening the balcony door turned it off.
The receptionist said that they refilled this daily, although the cleaning staff forgot on the second day, but I won’t hold that against them. They were probably shell-shocked when they entered Richard’s room early without knocking, although he quite rightly went to reception to complain about that situation. There’s also a kettle for those wanting hot drinks.
The view from the balcony and I will say that it’s not the best location within Athens as it’s not the most salubrious of areas and it’s about a twenty-five minute walk to the Acropolis area. The hotel was built in 1988 and received a large renovation in 2007 which has given it more of a modern feel. There are some design quirks, there are two sets of double automatic doors which the hotel doesn’t use, but which guests keep trying to use as they don’t sign they’re out of use. The layout of reception, the restaurant and breakfast room isn’t in keeping with how the designs are arranged now, but everything was easy to find.
I did also have a view of the Acropolis (it is there if my two loyal blog readers look carefully), although I accept Richard’s was clearer than mine. There’s a swimming pool on top of the hotel, although I didn’t go and investigate it, nor did I burden myself with visiting the gym.
The welcome drink and I went for a Paulaner Weissbier which I’ve never had before, it was rather good, smooth with banana notes whilst being light and fluffy. Richard had a red wine which he hated. Bonus points to the hotel bar for the chilled glass and also the free nuts.
There is an underground car park over two levels and it’s free of charge, which is unusual. I won’t go into too much detail of the little crisis that Richard had when trying to drive out of the car park up the ramp, but I was very brave in very challenging circumstances where I thought we’d be there all day. All told, I thought that this was one of the best Accor hotels that I’ve stayed in. The staff were friendly, the hotel was spotlessly clean, the room exceeded my expectations and the service was on point. All rather lovely and a credit to the Accor chain.
