Hotel am Stadtgarten - Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany     

There are two parts to this hotel. A new four-star 'Design' hotel and a three-star 'Guest House' which is across the street from the hotel. My review is for the Guest House. We stayed in room 34 for two nights over the weekend. Though the building for the guest house is old, they have tried to spiff up the rooms to give them a modern, sleek flare. The carpet was new and the walls were painted a bright yellow with no scuffs or marks. A flat screen TV was mounted on the wall directly across from the bed. The linens were fresh and crisp and the bed comfortable. The bed and other furniture in the room was old, worn, and dated. The bathroom has not been updated at all and was not very clean. There was crusty stuff in the crack where the sink meets the wall and the shower stall doors had crusty limescale in the corners and one panel had black mould all over it!! There was some sort of water heater hanging over the toilet with a little sign in German saying that after the first person showers, you have to press a button in order for the water to be heated again for the second person to shower. Any guest who does not speak German wouldn't know to do this! Despite pressing the button after my shower, my husband had cold water at the end of his shower. We then turned the water temperature up on the heater, hoping that we wouldn't have the same problem the next morning but he still ended up with cold water towards the end. The street was pretty noisy all through the night. Yes, it is a university town and was a weekend so noise is expected but considering the room has no air condiitoning, you have to open the window during the warm weather. Perhaps there are quieter rooms at the back of the hotel. I also wasn't very happy with the building security. The entrance door to the guest house was always unlocked or left wide open. We came back to the hotel once at almost 1am to find the entrance door wide open. We thought that all of this was pretty unacceptable for 94Euros per night plus 8Euros for parking and 12.50Euros each for breakfast. So we went to reception and asked for at least free breakfast. But they said that we knew the price of all of things when we booked the room so they couldn't do anything for us. To which my husband replied that we couldn't have possibly known about the mould in the shower when booking!! Still, they wouldn't budge. So, we went off angry and ate breakfast somewhere else. When we got back to the room that night, the mould had been cleaned away. When we went to check out Sunday morning, they told us that because of the mould, they would like to give us two free breakfasts as an apology, which of course we took. Why didn't they do that the previous morning when we complained? They would have spared us the angry feeling and the confrontation! Anyway, the breakfast was really good. I don't know if it was a little bit more because it was Sunday or if the breakfast is like that every morning. There was everything you need to start your day and a very big selection. Due to our experience, I wouldn't recommend staying at the Guest House. I am sure there are nicer places to stay at in Freiburg for the same money.