Catalonia Las Cortes - Madrid, Spain 

We wanted to treat ourselves to a nice and reasonably priced hotel at the end of our two weeks travel from France to Spain and decided to settle at Catalonia Las Cortes. The hotel is very short distance from the train station and it's a 15 minutes walk. However, if you have luggages, highly suggest you take the cab BUT have the hotel arrange it for you. We got out of the station and took a cab in a nearby stand and when we told the cab driver where we were going, he started mumbling and looked sort of pissed off . Since the hotel is not located on one of the main street, it was hard to park and he almost kicked us out of the cab demanding the fare on the meter PLUS surcharge saying something like "too short of a trip and need to charge us more". He never got out of the car to help us with our luggage and we took our time but he started to swear (we knew since it's usually the first thing you learn in a foreign language) at us. Being we are New Yorkers, we could easily fight back without much fear, however, we let it go since we ARE in a foreign country. We decided to hold our tongue and told him to stop swearing. We told the concierge and she told us they could easily arrange a cab for us with more friendlier driver which they did for our trip to the airport. The hotel room is very spacious and clean with very comfortable bed. The breakfast is really the highlight of our days since it has a huge selection with great coffee to go with it. Just make sure you check the time since it's different between weekdays and weekends. The hotel is walking distance to a lot of places but you can take the Metro to a lot of places and it's very convenient. Madrid is really a city much like any other big city and has a huge nightlife. It's just so happened that we were there during the weekend of Blanco Noche when many of the museums in the city are opened 24 hours with free admissions and there were street performances until well into night. The local food scene is definitely one of the best in the world with many selections to chose from. We also took day trips outside of Madrid to Toledo, Saville and El Escorial which we thought were more charming than Madrid. Overall, the experience at Madrid was okay since it was just too much of a metropolis for us and missing the charm we were looking for.

This was my second stay at Catalonia Las Cortes in Madrid. The staff are very friendly. My only complaint is they were not able to help me when I had trouble accessing their wireless internet service. The room was nice and was equipped with every amenity. The shower was fabulous -- had a huge shower head with amazing water pressure. Quite a treat. I did not have time for breakfast this time but recall that last time (a few months ago) the food was good and service was outstanding.