Keys Corner

Tel.: +44 1404 861 234

The Belfry was originally Yarcombe village school house and was built in 1872. Katie & Paul Blake took over the hotel in 2003, having both previously worked in the Information Technology rat-race, so having a similar background to them and having toyed with similar ideas, we were particularly interested to see how they are making out!

They are running The Belfry as an up-market B&B which also does an evening meal. Paul cooks and is an excellent chef. Both Katie and Paul enjoy chatting with the guests after the evening meal and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay with them. The hotel is small, with 6 rooms, so booking is a good idea - also for the evening meal, as the restaurant is open to the public and has got a good reputation locally. They only take non-smokers without children, which suited us just fine.

Tel.: +49 911 93 02-0

This hotel gets the highest mark we can give. The Schindlerhof is not particularly cheap, but it is nonetheless excellent value for money. The service is attentive, the food is superb and the rooms are comfortable and contain all the little extras that show that Klaus Kobjoll and his team are aiming for perfection.

Kobjoll lives and breathes TQM (Total Quality Management) - the hotel won the European Quality Award for independent small and medium-sized enterprises in 1998 and Kobjoll regularly speaks at conferences and publishes books on the subject; he expects all his staff to live and breathe his TQM standards as well.

If you are looking for somewhere to stay for a special event, we can certainly recommend the Schindlerhof!

Tel.: +39-6-445607

Close to the Colosseum and the main railway station, convenient for public transport, the hotel itself is a nice old-fashioned family-run place that was built just over 100 years ago. The road the hotel is on is quiet.

Tel.: + 31 20 683 30 13

We enjoyed our stay here. The hotel, as the name suggests, has a theme of the great philosophers, and each room is named after one of them. The rooms are small but clean and each one is decorated to reflect a different thinker or cultural theme. We found the staff friendly and helpful and the hotel is near the city center, but on a quiet side road.

The hotel provides a list of several nice restaurants and interesting pubs nearby and although it doens't offer an evening meal, there is an good breakfast buffet. The hotel has a library for guests and runs a philosophical 'cafe' on Sunday evenings - unfortunately in Dutch!

Tel.: +351 291 910 530

Tel.: +34 941 30 42 24

This is a restored country house in the small village of Briñas. The hotel was little more than a ruin when the Gomez family took it over, but you wouldn't know that now. The hotel is very comfortably furnished and every room is decorated in a different style.

The hallmark of the hotel are the trompe l'oeil frescos that have been painted in the public areas by a Polish artist who normally lives on Ibiza - he came over for three months in the end phase of the restoration to do the frescos. We enjoyed a warm welcome and a great breakfast. Best of all, when we were photographing some of the frescos, the cleaning lady waved us into one of the other rooms to have a look, and we ending up having a guided tour of all the unoccupied bedrooms - nice to find a member of staff, who is so proud of her place of work!

The family running it has a second hotel (Hospederia Señorio de Casalarreina) in nearby Casalarreina, which they acquired after this one - we haven't visited it, but based on our experience at Hospederia Señorio de Briñas, it should be well worth a visit. (The hotel is a little more expensive at around 135 Euro for a double room).

Tel.: +34 948 45 07 08

This Hotel Rural has 5 rooms and is really a gourmet restaurant with lodging attached. We had an excellent 3-course meal for two here for 54 Euro and breakfast was an additional 5 Euro each. The rooms are in a separate house, a few paces up the road.

Tel.: +34 927 31 92 03

Henri Elink, former Dutch ambassador to Peru took over Finca Santa Marta and the neighbouring Finca Santa Teresa several years ago. He and his wife, Marta Rodr�gues-Gimeno, an interior designer, have transformed the old olive mill into a comfortable B&B with 14 rooms which also serves a (single choice) evening meal, usually consisting of local dishes. Henri likes to offer his guests an ap�ritif before the evening meal when he is around. It's worth eating in the finca as there are few alternatives nearby, the cooking is excellent and the meal is served with local wine made on a neighbouring farm. The original olive press from the mill is the centerpiece of the large dining room.

The Extremadura is a poor and relatively unspoilt region of Spain, and apart from visiting the local towns (Trujillo, Guadalupe, M�rida and C�ceres) the main attraction is the bird life and walking in the dehesa countryside nearby

Tel.: +46 8 506 401 20

Ruth stayed here when she was at EuroSTAR 2001. The hotel is right in the centre of Gamla Stan. It is a tall narrow building which takes up one (tiny!) block of the old town. This hotel has nearly all single rooms which are very small but functional. The rooms are reminiscent of ships' cabins with space efficiently utilised, so that there really is room to stow away all your luggage.

In fact the whole hotel has a nautical theme with all kinds of things on display from shipheads to knots. The staff were friendly; the breakfast buffet good. There are two other hotels in Gamla Stan run by the same group - the Victory Hotel and the Lady Hamilton Hotel. Both looked to be equally as inviting from the outside - and offer more double accomodation.