CITY BREAKS DON’T NEED TO BREAK THE BANK.
Location, service with a smile and clean sheets is all you really need from a hotel in a city. Don’t assume two nights in Rome is going to work out cheaper in an Air B’n’B and come to the Flip Flop, I’m your Italian nonna now.
Hotel de la Boetie, Paris
Hotel of the Bottom in my language and Hotel of Beata Hueuman if you speak interior design language. Come for the Instagram kudos, stay for the Diptique lotions and potions.
From Price Per Night
£180
BOOK HERE
Miss Clara, Stockholm
Once a girls school, the hotel has been named after the progressive and radical principal Clara Strömberg, a pioneer in sex-ed. Design is Art Nouveau and breakfast has bread with more seeds than you can count on two hands - that’s Scandinavia for ya!
From Price Per Night
£200
BOOK HERE
Sir Albert, Amsterdam
I have it on good authority (a girlfriend who isn’t cool but really wants to be - you know the ones?) that De Pijp is the hippiest hoppiest most happening part of Amsterdam. So bag a bed here and swing with the in crowd.
From Price Per Night
£150
Gatsby, Athens
Location is perfect, perched on the edge of Plaka and the higgledy piggledy streets full of tavernas and pussy cats but also an easy walk from Syntagma Square for the hourly changing of the guard - come for the costumes, stay for the leg kicks.
From Price Per Night
£150
BOOK HERE
Yurbban Trafalgar Hotel, Barcelona
It’s Spain! The sun is too hot, the tapas are battered or covered in tomato and the wines dangerously cheap. Better still if you are staying here the rooftop pool is a great place to balance a bottle on your patatas bravas belly.
From Price Per Night
£170
BOOK HERE
The Hoxton, Rome
It might be a British brand but the hotel is doing all it can to embrace the ‘dolce vitae’ with local art and food collabs. Better still cool chics and Italian studs swan around their cocktail bar Cugino.
From Price Per Night
£170
The Lumiares, Lisbon
Tucked away in Bairro Alto (the same place people with limitless budgets want to stay) the hotel straddles the seven hills of Lisbon. This means it’s rooftop bar has some of the best views of the city to take in with your favourite cocktail. My sweet colleague stayed with her sister and confirmed the beds are delicious too.
From Price Per Night
£200
Ksar Kasbah & SPA, Marrakech
Yes, yes, yes I know this is not Europe but it’s close enough and the sun is almost always shining.
From Price Per Night
£100
BOOK HERE
