Hotel Andra, Munich ****
The hotel is three blocks from the Munich central train station, so if you are good on foot, you can walk there in approximately 12-15 minutes. The advantage of the location is the relative lower level of traffic as compared to the first two blocks of Goethe street.
Reception is one floor up from the ground, but there is an elevator that covers all four floors of the hotel. Staff is very friendly and I was very happy to have a room to the back, as this is usually quieter than the street side. The room is mid-size with a desk and chair combination and - in this particular room (45) - two separate single beds.
The bathroom was clean but - considering the hotel was apparently renovated in 2010 - rather bland. The shower tap, unfortunately, was pretty much a nightmare as the right temperature was impossible to find and just nudging over the handle would give you either scalding hot or freezing cold.
The room had no A/C and, since it doesn't have an external shutter either, probably gets quite warm in the summer. The bed wasn't great as far as comfort goes, but bearable. The desk didn't have a lamp on it, which I found strange, making work and especially Facetime pretty gloomy.
The Wifi is spotty - sometimes it was quite fast and sometimes nothing seemed to move. After about an hour of YouTube streaming, they apparently cut me off (since neither available access point gave me any traffic, yet my iPhone still worked). Not very nice.
Breakfast was quite an amazing sight - likely the largest and most varied breakfast buffet I've ever seen in a hotel this size. They even had Weisswurst with Pretzel and sweet mustard, a Bavarian specialty. Very impressive.
All in all this is certainly a hotel you can book, though no guarantees on the room temperature in the summer. It isn't anywhere near a tram or S-Bahn station, so you'll need to walk about 15 minutes either direction to get on public transport.
Be aware that at my time of stay, there was a giant construction site that looks like they tore down half a block just on the other side of the hotel (about 50m away). They start work pretty early (7:00h).
Reception is one floor up from the ground, but there is an elevator that covers all four floors of the hotel. Staff is very friendly and I was very happy to have a room to the back, as this is usually quieter than the street side. The room is mid-size with a desk and chair combination and - in this particular room (45) - two separate single beds.
The bathroom was clean but - considering the hotel was apparently renovated in 2010 - rather bland. The shower tap, unfortunately, was pretty much a nightmare as the right temperature was impossible to find and just nudging over the handle would give you either scalding hot or freezing cold.
The room had no A/C and, since it doesn't have an external shutter either, probably gets quite warm in the summer. The bed wasn't great as far as comfort goes, but bearable. The desk didn't have a lamp on it, which I found strange, making work and especially Facetime pretty gloomy.
The Wifi is spotty - sometimes it was quite fast and sometimes nothing seemed to move. After about an hour of YouTube streaming, they apparently cut me off (since neither available access point gave me any traffic, yet my iPhone still worked). Not very nice.
Breakfast was quite an amazing sight - likely the largest and most varied breakfast buffet I've ever seen in a hotel this size. They even had Weisswurst with Pretzel and sweet mustard, a Bavarian specialty. Very impressive.
All in all this is certainly a hotel you can book, though no guarantees on the room temperature in the summer. It isn't anywhere near a tram or S-Bahn station, so you'll need to walk about 15 minutes either direction to get on public transport.
Be aware that at my time of stay, there was a giant construction site that looks like they tore down half a block just on the other side of the hotel (about 50m away). They start work pretty early (7:00h).
Comments
Arthotel Munich *****
Stayed: Jan. 2014
This hotel seems a ways away from the train station entrance, but really its very easy to reach: you walk along track 11 inside the building for about 100m. When the train station building ends, you’ll walk across a bridge and then you have an escalator down on the left. Take that, cross the street and you’re less than a minute from the hotel.
The hotel is really worth a stay: the rate is excellent (mine included breakfast), the rooms are completely renovated (as is the entrance hall and, seemingly, every other nook and cranny of the hotel), though you can tell its an old building by the extra high ceilings.
You have a short hallway in your room (with a door to the bathroom) and a door separating this from where you stay, so you should have no noise coming from the main hallway at all. My room was towards the back (which is a courtyard), so I had no street noise at all.
The room is big, the furniture all new and modern. There are paintings on the walls to freshen things up. Enough room for a desk big enough to take a laptop plus whatever else. And, much to my extreme joy, there are two outlets right on the desk:
Yes, that is an iPhone docking clock thingie under the TV...
The bathroom is fantastic, the only thing that irked me is that the air exhaust fan turned on and off with the light switch (instead of with a delay), but that’s just me.
My room had newly-installed A/C, so you should be ok in the summer as well.
Really unusual was the pillow; at first I throught I had grabbed the wrong one, as it seemed unusually hard, but it was certainly more the pillow for the night than the other one that I’d found on the bed. The hardness persisted and was somewhat of a challenge to get used to. However, I slept exceptionally well on the pillow - so well, in fact, that I took it out of the case the next morning to find out which brand and type it was:Ikea Gosa Hassel.
Breakfast had everything I was looking for and took place in a nice restaurant-like atmosphere on the ground floor.
I can absolutely recommend this hotel to anyone looking to visit Munich. The vicinity to the central train station is great, you’re not in a street with half of Munich’s red-light district on it and it is a quiet street, so even a room to the front shouldn’t be an issue.
This hotel seems a ways away from the train station entrance, but really its very easy to reach: you walk along track 11 inside the building for about 100m. When the train station building ends, you’ll walk across a bridge and then you have an escalator down on the left. Take that, cross the street and you’re less than a minute from the hotel.
The hotel is really worth a stay: the rate is excellent (mine included breakfast), the rooms are completely renovated (as is the entrance hall and, seemingly, every other nook and cranny of the hotel), though you can tell its an old building by the extra high ceilings.
You have a short hallway in your room (with a door to the bathroom) and a door separating this from where you stay, so you should have no noise coming from the main hallway at all. My room was towards the back (which is a courtyard), so I had no street noise at all.
The room is big, the furniture all new and modern. There are paintings on the walls to freshen things up. Enough room for a desk big enough to take a laptop plus whatever else. And, much to my extreme joy, there are two outlets right on the desk:
Yes, that is an iPhone docking clock thingie under the TV...
The bathroom is fantastic, the only thing that irked me is that the air exhaust fan turned on and off with the light switch (instead of with a delay), but that’s just me.
My room had newly-installed A/C, so you should be ok in the summer as well.
Really unusual was the pillow; at first I throught I had grabbed the wrong one, as it seemed unusually hard, but it was certainly more the pillow for the night than the other one that I’d found on the bed. The hardness persisted and was somewhat of a challenge to get used to. However, I slept exceptionally well on the pillow - so well, in fact, that I took it out of the case the next morning to find out which brand and type it was:Ikea Gosa Hassel.
Breakfast had everything I was looking for and took place in a nice restaurant-like atmosphere on the ground floor.
I can absolutely recommend this hotel to anyone looking to visit Munich. The vicinity to the central train station is great, you’re not in a street with half of Munich’s red-light district on it and it is a quiet street, so even a room to the front shouldn’t be an issue.
Hotel Goethe, Munich **
A colleague reserved the hotel for me for two nights, because it used to be a favorite years ago with folks from Kleindienst Datentechnik and because it was relatively inexpensive, yet close to the Munich central train station.
It really is a relatively short walk (two blocks) down Goethe street, which isn’t as inundated with sex shops, etc., as some of the other streets in the area.
To make things short, I can’t really recommend the hotel, for a couple of reasons:
1) the toilet smelled - well, unclean - for my entire stay - as if it hadn’t been cleaned for a while.
2) the shower was annoying - the shower head didn’t fit properly into the holder (too loose), causing it to spray anywhere but where it was supposed to spray.
3) the heat was turned off pretty early in the evening (at least when I got in on the second day at around 10PM, it was already off). The heater in the bathroom didn’t seem to work at all.
4) there was a continuous swell of cold air “falling” from the window. Since the bed was right against the window, I needed two blankets to get halfway comfortable at night.
5) there is no elevator…
6) the fire escape stairs are fitted to rear windows in the stairway. While this is in general quite ok, here it isn’t, as the windows are more than 1m off the floor! I.e.: older folks probably would have serious difficulties getting up the window sill to get out in case of a fire, and children wouldn’t be able to open the window at all (see picture)
7) the lady at reception publicly bawled out a cleaning lady for doing a bad job cleaning the rooms (see point 1 above?) - since reception and the breakfast room are one big area, everyone in the breakfast room was party to this.
8) the hairdryer was “rigged” by running two copper wires (insulated, mind you) from the nearest outlet (see picture), which means: no connection to earth and subsequently no protection from electric shock whatsoever, should the hair dryer fail or get wet!
The hotel is run by a Turkish family, and breakfast is very much like it is in smaller hotels in Istanbul (which I thoroughly enjoy) - the only highlight in my opinion.
It really is a relatively short walk (two blocks) down Goethe street, which isn’t as inundated with sex shops, etc., as some of the other streets in the area.
To make things short, I can’t really recommend the hotel, for a couple of reasons:
1) the toilet smelled - well, unclean - for my entire stay - as if it hadn’t been cleaned for a while.
2) the shower was annoying - the shower head didn’t fit properly into the holder (too loose), causing it to spray anywhere but where it was supposed to spray.
3) the heat was turned off pretty early in the evening (at least when I got in on the second day at around 10PM, it was already off). The heater in the bathroom didn’t seem to work at all.
4) there was a continuous swell of cold air “falling” from the window. Since the bed was right against the window, I needed two blankets to get halfway comfortable at night.
5) there is no elevator…
6) the fire escape stairs are fitted to rear windows in the stairway. While this is in general quite ok, here it isn’t, as the windows are more than 1m off the floor! I.e.: older folks probably would have serious difficulties getting up the window sill to get out in case of a fire, and children wouldn’t be able to open the window at all (see picture)
7) the lady at reception publicly bawled out a cleaning lady for doing a bad job cleaning the rooms (see point 1 above?) - since reception and the breakfast room are one big area, everyone in the breakfast room was party to this.
8) the hairdryer was “rigged” by running two copper wires (insulated, mind you) from the nearest outlet (see picture), which means: no connection to earth and subsequently no protection from electric shock whatsoever, should the hair dryer fail or get wet!
The hotel is run by a Turkish family, and breakfast is very much like it is in smaller hotels in Istanbul (which I thoroughly enjoy) - the only highlight in my opinion.