Sunny Lisbon

Last April I had to travel to Amsterdam for a few days, and lived a little nightmare while trying to book my hotel. It was the Queens Birthday, everything was in either one of two states : central and extremely expensive or in the middle of nowhere and under my price range. So I tried to decide which one was the best middle of nowhere, and let me tell you, it is hard. Since I’ve never been to Amsterdam before, I had no idea of how the city transportation worked, if the hotel X was really close to the train station or if hotel Y was really only at a 10 minutes walk to the nearest bus stop. Online booking systems can give you some help, as user reviews help you understand how many 10 minutes it really takes, and how badly the free hotel mini-bus really work.

I made my choice, based on a couple of user reviews, but even tough, I as totally insecure about my decision. What a shot in the dark! I ended up booking a small hotel in a distant Amsterdam suburb. In the end, it was not a bad experience after all, but it could have been. As this is always a risk you travel to a country that you don’t know and of which none of your contacts has an well informed opinion.

So, I’ll start a new topic in this blog, where I will try to produce some hotel reviews, not as if it is seen from the inside, but seeing it from the outside, analyzing it’s location, surroundings and transportation available. So if you are visiting Lisbon and feel like choosing an hotel will be a shot in the dark, search the blog, maybe I’ve talked about it. If I didn’t, well, just leave a comment and I’ll try to make a post of it as soon as it is possible.