For our Christmas break, we wanted to spend time with my family – near Blackheath in London.
So I did what I rarely do, I picked a hotel based solely on location, essentially I was prepared to stay anywhere… so long as it was close to Blackheath. We selected this hotel and wow! What a find, this is an absolutely marvelous hotel and highly recommended. In my humble opinion, this hotel is underrated and our Holiday was definitely enhanced by our stay here. This hotel is surely on our “must return” list.
Three major plus points for this hotel. First to mention are the staff – absolutely great, friendly, efficient. These are the type of people that put a capital “H” in Hospitality. The folks at the front desk were friendly, they had a great attitude, prompt, very helpful with directions. In the restaurant, we ‘clicked’ with Lorenzo, who despite being busy always had a couple of minutes to say hello and ask about our meal and our day (nice touch). Second was the breakfast – included by default for all rooms, and a marvelous buffet of hot/cold choices (I’m a ‘breakfast’ type of person, so this wins big points for me). One day we decided to eat in (the weather was typical for London at Christmas, enough rain to bring an umbrella, enough wind to make it pointless). The lunch was very good - good tasty food, good service, good wine selection, nice place, and reasonable prices. Lastly is the location (in the real estate business they say the 3 most important characteristics of a property are location, location and location – and surely this is very important for any hotel). Blackheath is well connected by train to the centre of London (ca. 2 or 3 services an hour, and ca. 20-25 minutes – look at a timetable for details), also well connected by bus to nearby places like Greenwich (where “east meets west” - an absolute must if you are touring London) – the staff at the hotel will tell you the bus number, and stop – some services stop just outside the hotel. Blackheath itself is not cheap, lots of nice, but pricey shops, lots of good (reasonable prices on the couple I tried) eating places.
OK to be balanced and fair, I should mention one weakness – the buildings are old, if you are looking for smoked glass, stainless steel, and a room on the 28th floor then keep looking (you will find none of these things here). While old buildings have their very own charm, clearly the idea of a bathroom in every bedroom was not in the original design (i.e. the bathroom is a little on the small side). As I am tall (and a little wide) a small bathroom is easily noticed, however without a doubt the plus points easily outweigh this distraction.