Europe Hotels and Accommodation
A guide to help prepare your European vacation

In Europe, hotels are classified in a star-rating system ranging from one star to five stars. One starred hotels may not have a private bathroom or a telephone in your room, but are usually clean and acceptable. Five stars means that the reception is staffed 24 hours a day, there is a swimming pool, room service, lift, restaurant, bar and many other luxury services and fittings. Let your budget decide. If only the best is good enough for you, don't dismiss 4 star hotels; they often have more character than their 5-star counterparts, but don't deserve the 5th star because of their historic building limitations. In all cases, study the various options and correspond with the hotels to see how they respond.

Unless you have booked your room in a 5-star hotel, where porters are always available, be prepared to carry your own luggage, and sometimes over 1-3 floors, as many buildings predate the elevators. Continental European breakfasts are usually a simple affair, with France offering the simplest (bread, jam and coffee). Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Northern Italy offer cold meats and cheese with your breakfast. Whether breakfast is included in your room's price depends on the country; the only country where almost all hotels include it is Italy.

If 3-star accommodation is what you are after, look at the large hotel chains like Accor (Mercure, Novotel), Campanile (countryside style), or Relais et Chateaux (castle accommodation).

In Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France there is a chain with small picturesque hotels, called Romantik Hotels. In France, Chateaux Hotels offers castle accommodation slightly cheaper than Relais et Chateaux.

Hotel food is of variable quality. One good investment is the Michelin Red Guide, which is still practical only in its printed form. Each year, it lists a selection of hotels and restaurants for most European countries. You'll need to buy one book for each country - an investment which seems out of proportion at first, but which you will quickly appreciate. Usually you can trust every single restaurant listed in that guide; and most hotels.

Customer reviews websites like "TripAdvisor" offer advice and recommendations of variable quality. It is a known fact that hotels have hired dozens of fake "reviewers" to boost their popularity in such websites. Hard for you to complain, since the review websites are free; but if your trip to Europe has to be an important one, and you want to avoid mistakes and errors, prefer a trusted printed guide like the Michelin Red Guide.