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Hotel Bel'Espérance

Rue de la Vallée 1, Phone: 41.22.818.3737
www.hotel-bel-esperance.ch

Reviewed by: kaydee from TN, review #1252

When: August 2005

Simple and clean two-star hotel owned by the Salvation Army. Convenient quiet location. Reasonable price. Surprisingly good breakfast. {2 star}

We spent the last night of our 14-month "Grand Tour of Europe" in Geneva, flying home to the USA the next morning. We had the possibility of an afternoon in Geneva, a place we had never been before. I wanted to stay in a convenient part of the city, but we really didn't want to spend much money. We paid {the equivalent of} about $150 US for our family of three, including breakfast, for a night at this two star hotel.

The Hotel Bel'Espérance is owned by the Salvation Army. I had expected the Salvation Army connection to be more visible within the hotel, but it really wasn't. It will feel just like any other hotel, except there were a couple of people in Salvation Army uniforms at breakfast.

The hotel has about 40 rooms, spread over five or six floors. There is a small elevator. We had a triple room, which actually was a little (very little) two room suite. One room had a queen bed and the other had a single bed and a desk. There wasn't room for much else besides the beds and our suitcases. Fortunately we did have a tiny balcony looking down on the street and out to the lake, and this helped prevent a serious case of claustrophobia. You can go all the way to the top of the building and there is a nice terrace with tables and chairs on the roof.

The hotel is very clean with a homey air about it. There was a living area on our floor, and we noticed a guest kitchen. Breakfast is served in a large breakfast room and there was a pretty substantial offering of different foods. There is a computer for accessing the internet, available at a small cost.

The location is on a quiet side street in the old town, convenient to shopping, museums and the lake. We spent the afternoon walking and exploring. I think this would be a good base for a couple of days in Geneva. In hindsight -- since we were just in Geneva for an afternoon and night -- it probably would have been more economical for our family to stay closer to the train station since we ended up taking a taxi between the station and the hotel which added to the cost of our stay.

This review is the opinion of a Slow Travel member and not of slowtrav.com.

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