I’ve just returned from a holiday in Nice, where there’s approximately 300 days of sunshine a year, there are French women sunbathing topless on the beach, and you can dunk your baguette in your coffee and just sit back and watch the world go by. I went to Nice to meet up with my boyfriend after he’d been at conferences, and so we decided to have a short holiday there. I spent weeks trying to find the perfect accommodation, looking on hundreds of websites, trying to balance out cost issues, as well as trying to find somewhere in a good location, and that had good reviews by other travelers. I finally, FINALLY made a decision and booked the Hotel Splendid through hotelclub.com five days before I left.

The Hôtel Splendid is a 4-star hotel located on the Boulevard Victor-Hugo in the centre of Nice, a few minute’s walk away from both the main train station and the Boulevard des Anglais. There are 128 rooms within the 8-storey building subdivided into “Harmony”, “Deluxe” or “Suite” rooms, each with varying degrees of luxury. The hotel has conference facilities, WiFi, internet access in the lobby (You have to pay though). On the top floor is a swimming pool and Jacuzzi, as well as a bar and separate restaurant. There’s also a beauty salon and hairdressers next to the lobby area.

I have to say that the location of the hotel is fantastic. The Boulevard Victor Hugo is a reasonably quiet residential and small-business street that runs parallel to the Boulevard des Anglais, about three short blocks back from the sea. If you turn left on exiting the hotel, then the train station is a ten minute amble away, perfect to jump on a train and go to Monte-Carlo for lunch, as we did! Although the street is pretty quiet, you can often hear motorbikes whizzing up and down the streets at pretty much any time of the day or night. You can hear the traffic even if you sleep with the windows closed, but this really didn’t bother us too much as we’re used to city noise. It’s certainly not enough noise to wake you up from sleep, but if you’re particularly sensitive to noise at night, then you might want to bear this in mind.

As you enter the hotel, you pass a cute little water feature as well as some blackboards highlighting some of the dishes being served at the restaurant. There’s a nice big check-in counter, and the staff are very friendly and welcoming. I had printed out a confirmation slip, and the staff just checked it and handed me my key, and that was it! It was fantastic not to have to faff around waiting to sign papers and swipe credit cards. You do that at check out, and it’s speedy and professional (The concierge will also look after your bags if you check out early and have a day to kill before you go home). Check in time is 1PM, check-out is at noon, although you can negotiate to check out later for a fee if you want.

THE ROOM:

The TV had about twenty channels. The majority of them were in French, but there were also channels in German, Italian, Mandarin and English. We watched mostly BBC and CNN, flicking it on most mornings to find out what the hell was going on back in England! The minibar had the usual combination of mini bottles of booze, as well as some bottled water. I couldn’t find a price list, so I’m not sure how much they would all cost. There was lots of writing paper, and hotel information in the room, as well as information on the internet (either in the lobby, or you could pay for WiFi in your room). There was an individual aircon that was remote-control operated. This was fantastic, as we had the power to control how cold or otherwise we wanted the room (Much better than those hotels where you are at the mercy of centralized airconditioning!)

The ensuite bathroom had the cutest little floor tiles, pink roses! There was a toilet, a bidet, a stool and a bath with a shower head inside, as well as towels and the usual collection of toiletries. If you wanted to have a wash, you could pull a lever and have the water run out of the bath taps, or out of the shower head that was connected to them by a hose. Unfortunately, there was no hook to hang the shower head up to, so you had to hold the shower head yourself, which was a bit annoying, especially when I was trying to wash my hair one handed! I guess the stool was there so that you could sit on it and wash yourself sitting down, but I didn’t bother. It was also really hard to get the water temperature right for the shower; it seemed to always be too cold or too hot. Thankfully, because it was so hot I didn’t mind jumping under a cold shower, but this could become really irritating in winter. The feature I absolutely loved about the bathroom was the sliding windows located above the bath which opened up onto the balcony. As we were up so high and there were no buildings any higher around, I had plenty of baths with the windows wide open; from which I could see the blue sky and the fluffy white clouds slowly meandering by. Bliss!

The hotel was really well equipped with lots of amenities to make our break really relaxing. Here’s a quick rundown:

BAR:
There’s a bar next to the pool with good views over the city. You can pay in cash or charge things to your room. My boyfriend had a cup of coffee for €2.50 but he said you’d get better value coffee at the cafes down on street level.

BEAUTY SALON:
Downstairs in the lobby is the beauty salon. This offers a wide range of therapies such as facials (€55-80), massages (€50-80) using Decléor products. In the room is a coupon giving you a 10% discount on any Decléor product if you’ve had a treatment at the Spa, so this could be good value if you’re a fan of Decléor. You can also take advantage of the spa even if you’re not staying at the hotel; a treatment includes use of the pool and Jacuzzi as well.

We had a very pleasant stay in Nice, which was in part due to staying at the Hôtel Splendid. It was clean and comfortable, and the room was really nice. We didn’t spend much time in the room as we were busy eating our way across Nice, but we did spend one evening just hanging out, swimming and watching French TV and I certainly didn’t feel claustrophobic, or frustrated, or eager to get out of there. It does seem a bit soulless, but I think that’s a problem with most hotels in Nice- there are so many mainstream, middle-of-the-road places that it’s hard to find something quirky and unusual. This place is slap-bang mainstream, but it has everything that you need, and no unpleasant surprises. The staff were really friendly and had tons of tourist information at their fingertips, so it makes for a very easy stay at the Hotel. Recommended as a “safe” choice for those who don’t have the time, energy or money to look into more adventurous accommodation!

The sign on the door of our room charged €220 per night for a standard room; we paid €135 by booking on hotelclub.com which was probably the cheapest of all websites that I checked out (expedia, lastminute, etc. etc.) It was one of the few hotels that had rooms left 5 days before we wanted to check in, so availability doesn’t seem to be a problem, although at the height of summer you might want to be more organised that I am!