Bruges street
by mightyweaseWe only stayed overnight on our first trip to Bruges but –with the exception of one aspect, which I will mention later – we had a very good experience in this hotel.
The rooms were a good size and very nicely decorated in pastel colours and the bathroom was spacious and clean. The staff at the reception desk were extremely pleasant, telephoning to reserve a table at the restaurant we wanted to eat and advising us of the train times back to Brussels amongst other courtesies.
The breakfast was very good with a mixtures of bread and pastries, cereals, meats and cheeses etc.. A good start to the day!
My one complaint – and to be honest it is as much our fault as the hotels - is to do with depositing keys at the reception desk. We normally do this wherever we are as I my ability to lose things - even when Stephen is looking after them – is legendary! However, on the night we stayed at the Aragon we didn’t as there was no one at reception to take our key and we didn’t want to just leave it on the counter. We stayed out rather late enjoying the delights of Bruges and Belgian beer, arriving back at the Aragon at about 1.30am to find the sliding doors shut and firmly locked. We spent about 15 minutes knocking –there were lights in the reception area and to all intents and purposes the hotel looked about – and trying to get in until a rather disgruntled looking night-porter arrived and opened the door. We asked why the doors weren’t open and were told that when all the keys in the hotel were ‘out’ of reception the assumption was that all the guests were in their rooms for the night and, thus the hotel doors were locked. As we hadn’t left our key at reception the staff had assumed we were in our room not out and about in Bruges. If we had left our key the hotel doors would have been open. We tried to explain that there hadn’t been anyone at reception to leave the key with and we were pointed to a basket on the desk and told we should have put the key in there. Okay, fair enough, we hadn’t done that so it was our fault but neither were we aware of the hotel’s policy of locking the doors once all gayest had returned for the night – not a bad policy at all, I can’t criticise that, however, I just wish we had known about it and been told about the basket for keys on reception, It would have saved us quite a bit of worry and embarrassment.
However, despite my moaning I would certainly recommend the Aragon for anyone looking for a quiet, romantic, welcoming hotel in the beautiful city of Bruges.
