by Andrew H Brown

Created on: January 22, 2011   Last Updated: January 23, 2011

When looking to book a hotel in Bled I was quite put out by the prices. Slovenia is not an inexpensive country as regards hotel accommodation and it seemed that to get anything decent we wouldn't be getting much change out of €100. Finally, after a bit of searching, we managed to book the Hotel Astoria for what turned out to be a very reasonable €80 from those nice people at expedia. So we duly booked.

The hotel is situated 300m from Lake Bled and the park, and 500m from the town centre. It's also quite close to Bled Castle. On arriving in town it's relatively easy to find, situated at the far end, close to the bus station. It's well signposted anyway.The hotel doesn't have a great deal of parking but it seemed to me that they cater for a lot of bus tours and not so many guests arriving by car so we never had a problem parking our car almost right at the door. What's more, the parking is free.

The hotel building couldn't really be described as attractive, not even by fans of 60's style architecture, well maybe by them, but not by me. It wouldn't have looked out of place in Lloret de Mar. On the plus side, the hotel sits a little way up the hill from the lake and with five floors we were hoping for a decent view over the lake from the balcony.

The reception area was quite roomy and welcoming but a little old-fashioned with the restaurant occupying a large proportion of the ground floor. The staff were efficient and friendly and we were checked in in no time at all.

There are a choice of rooms at this hotel: superior rooms which have been upgraded and classed as 4 stars, and un-renovated rooms which are classed as 3 stars. We chose the 4 star option mainly for the fact that these had AC, but also because I didn't really fancy the idea of an 'un-renovated' room.

This turned out to be a wise choice as whilst our room was classed as superior, I couldn't help thinking, "superior to what?" It's all relative, I suppose.

The room was modern and very clean but it was small. There was a comfortable queen size bed which pretty much dominated the floor space and left only enough room for the wardrobe, mini-bar and drawers and work desk fixed to the opposite wall. The storage space was adequate for our needs but I've no idea where you'd store your luggage if you travelling with full size cases.

There was an old fashioned TV but the picture was good and we had just short of a gazillion channels to choose from in every language imaginable and even a large selection

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