Strasbourg: Hotel Le Grillon (2 Star Hotel)

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Address: 2 rue thiergarten , Strasbourg , France

Lonely Planet review

Unpretentious and a bit idiosyncratic (who put that fake palm tree in the lobby?), this two-star hotel - the name means 'cricket' - has 71 reasonably priced rooms. Furnishings are practical and modern, with lots of real and simulated wood.

Innocent of highfalutin interior design, the Grillon is an endearing hodgepodge. Each floor has rooms of a different colour scheme - yellow, blue, red and green. The newer rooms have parquet floors and modern furnishings; some bathrooms come with checkerboard tile floors and opaque glass shower doors. The older rooms, on the other hand, are in unbelievably bad taste (by today's standards) and star heavy furniture from deep in the 1980s. On the top floor are small rooms with running water, floorboards with cracks wide enough to lose a coin, and tiny dormer windows - a great deal if you're on a shoestring budget. The lobby gets special decorations in honour of each season - snowy scenes for winter, straw bundles with fuzzy chicks for spring. Enclosed bicycle parking is available.