Our accommodation in Chester – England

DAY 7 – After the Lake District, we travelled south to Chester and our hotel for the night was the Holiday Inn.  Tony and I are scarred from our stay at this hotel due to the instant coffee they served in the hotel restaurant.  Tony can smell instant coffee a mile away and when he complained to the restaurant manager, she was rather taken aback.  What’s the fuss with instant coffee, that’s what they use in this hotel!!

I must say that the buffet dinner that we had was just as appalling as the instant coffee – trays of boiled carrots, boiled peas, boiled cauliflower…just the kind of ‘food’ that caused people to flee the empire in the old days!  I must say that the restaurant staff were not particularly friendly either.  So who can blame them if they have to constantly field complaints about the food and beverage in the place.

Just to be sure that I wasn’t being unduly unfair due to our distaste of instant coffee, I checked up the hotel reviews in Trip Advisor and was amazed at the number of really bad feedbacks.  It is such a shame that one’s initial and ongoing impression of this beautiful city should be tainted by this hotel. 

Holiday Inn aside, Chester is a great place to visit  and it steps you back into Roman times.  We saw the city’s ancient encircling walls and its remarkable 13th century black and white galleried ‘Rows’, which are now shopping arcades.

Helen