User Reviews

Internacional Design Hotel, Lisbon

by MALUSE

Göppingen, Baden-Württemberg

December 15, 2010

Best of IgoUgo **Location**More central is not possible. My husband and I had been to Lisbon before and knew the layout of the city. We decided that this time we didn’t want to use the underground, bus or tram to get to the centre, so we opted for a hotel in the ...Read more **Location**

More central is not possible. My husband and I had been to Lisbon before and knew the layout of the city. We decided that this time we didn’t want to use the underground, bus or tram to get to the centre, so we opted for a hotel in the Baixa, the low part of the city, which constitutes the centre. The Internacional Design Hotel is at the corner of Rua Bellesga and Rua Augusta, the main artery of the city centre. It runs from the Rossio Square to the PraVa di Comercio which opens up to the river Teide. It’s a pedestrian precinct throughout with small elegant shops on either side. Nightlife is elsewhere, when the shops close, the pavements are rolled up (as the Germans say). The traffic round the Rossio Square isn’t heavy at night, double-glazed windows and earplugs help the tired-out tourist to sleep well.

**The building**

I haven’t found a date, my guess is that the building is more than a hundred years old, the facade has some nice Art Deco elements. The International Design Hotel inside is rather new and modern, it belongs to a group of ‘small luxury hotels of the world’. It has 54 rooms on four floors.

The front door opens directly to the small reception area. We found the young staff friendly and efficient. Occasionally there’s even someone who opens the door for the entering or exiting guests, a rather old-fashioned gesture in these surroundings. The main colour of the interior is violet, from the ties of the receptionists to the glass panel in front of the (slow) lift, which is lit by violet light bulbs underneath, to the carpet on the stairs.

The Design hotel has four concepts, the ground floor is Urban, the second floor Tribe, the third floor Zen, the fourth floor Pop. On the fifth floor are XL rooms of 22 m² with a veranda overlooking Rua August and Rossio Square. I couldn’t find out in which style they’re decorated.

In the hotel brochure each concept is described in breathless ad speak, for example Urban:
"Inspired by the rhythm of large cities.
Fast! Pace.
Graffiti.
Music, house, techno.
Contrasts, straight lines and forms,
Metals, strong colours.
Black.
Dark. Stop!"

One can find this either poetic or poor English. You decide.

**Our room**

We had room 302 on the Zen floor. It has 17 m² which according to the hotel list is size L. It was fine for us, but we’d rate the size average to small, certainly not L. Apart from the white bed linen the colours are: brown, stone grey and off white, quite soothing for the eye. The only bright spot is the neon green toilet paper in the bathroom.

The door is opened with a card key. The only way to close it from the outside is to pull it hard which isn’t possible without a loud noise. One can be lucky if only few rooms are occupied on the corridor and the other guests aren’t night owls who return drunk and noisy late at night.

To the right of the door is a built-in wardrobe with sliding doors in dark brown (like the rest of the furniture) with real coat hangers and not the usual un-stealable hotel variety. It contains a vault. Beside it stands a small rack for *one* suitcase although the room has twin beds and is clearly meant for two people. Above it hangs a long mirror. Next comes a desk with a coffee maker and a small lamp (with a weak light bulb) on it, a mini bar under it and one chair in front of it. Between the desk and the door to the tiny balcony overlooking Rua Augusta stands one small armchair, two people are not meant to sit comfortably in this room.

The mattresses are comfy, yet the beds are too high. Odd in a country where the average person is rather short legged. I’m tall, my legs are long, yet I can’t put my feet on the floor when sitting on the bed. Anyone trying to tie their shoe laces there would topple over and land head-on on the carpet. The lamps beside the headrests have bright bulbs but are too far away so that reading in bed is impossible. The brightest spot in the room is the 1,5 m wide space between the door of the room and the door to the bathroom. For unknown reasons it’s brightly lit by two spotlights in the ceiling. One person can move the armchair there and read holding a book up towards the spotlights in the ceiling, certainly an odd arrangement.

Now to the bathroom. Strangely "Zen makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden. D.T. Suzuki" is written on the wall *above* the toilet bowl and not on the wall opposite so that one could meditate on the sentence while sitting there. Two railings on either side of the bowl show that this room is equipped for handicapped guests. This is positive, yet the bathroom has also several negative points. The room on either side of the wash basin is very narrow, one has to put one’s things on the shelf beneath it, not very convenient. I wonder if ever a guest has used the black rubber flip-flops standing there. Athlete’s foot is sending its regards! The washbasin is too high. The shower head is fixed to the wall, there is no tube, so it’s not possible to only wash one’s feet should one wish to do so. Putting a foot into the wash-basin requires the aptitude of a circus acrobat and is not risk free. Why there’s only one hook for the towels of two people remains a mystery. (Guests on other floors with different concepts had also only one hook). No glasses for tooth-brushes are offered, one has to take the ones standing on the desk beside a bottle of welcome water.

The most negative item, however, is the 0.5 - 1 cm wide gap between the opaque glass door of the bathroom and the surrounding frame. I’m sure that even the most intimate couples are not interested in each others’ aural and olfactory emissions. The other guests we asked had well-fitting doors.

**Breakfast room and bar**

Both are assets to the hotel. The breakfast is a self-serving affair, it’s of good quality and enough to strengthen a tourist for the day. The crockery is stylish, the cutlery tiny, someone must have had dwarfs in mind when designing it. Friendly young people help when help is needed and clear away and lay the tables. The bar in front of the breakfast room has comfy armchairs and sofas and also a rather well lit area where reading is possible.

**Final thoughts**

The prices for the rooms as listed at the reception are outrageously high. Our room costs 400 Euro a night! I wonder who pays such a price. We booked four nights at the beginning of October through a travel agency and paid 125 Euro per night which is just adequate in our opinion. Would we go again? Yes, any time, but only if we get the same rate and an L room overlooking the street (the S rooms open to the inner courtyard). Well, and a bathroom door without gaps would also be fine.

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