Just spent a couple of nights here. It's an interesting hotel, with lots of character - nothing like staying in a modern hotel chain facility. In a good location in the historic part of the town. The views from my window (5th Floor) were wonderful, across to the cathedral tower and surrounding rooftops and the wooded hills in the background. Anyone staying in summer and sensitive to noise should know that the cathedral bells chime all night, and there is no air conditioning, so it's not ideal for those who need complete and total silence plus a cool temperature all night. However, room was double-glazed, so not a problem for me in August. (I read a review of another hotel in Chur with a complaint about the church bells, but to me it's part of what goes with staying in a medieval city centre - stay in a chain motel near a motorway if you want modern types of noise!)


Staff are very friendly and all those I met spoke good English. If this review was based just on the professionalism and friendliness of the staff, I'd have rated the hotel as 'excellent'. The room was spotless with nice plain furniture and an attractive modern wooden floor, shower was clean with good water pressure and temperature control, linen was clean - everything was just fine and professional - and only two things stopped me saying 'above average' in the rating above.

The coffee at breakfast was really quite awful - that over-stewed 'camp' coffee stuff they use in cheaper European lodgings. I'm not a fussy eater, but it was just a really disappointing experience. The food itself was just about passable, but overall the breakfast was poor. If you stay, consider having your breakfast somewhere else, there are loads of cafes around where you can get a nice coffee for a few swiss francs.

The other issue was about the fire doors. It's a big old building, with a restaurant on a lower floor, so I was pleased to see sturdy looking firedoors to protect the areas where guest rooms are on each floor. However, these seem to be left open by guests, and there is no sign on them telling people to close them, nor was I asked to keep them close when I checked in. Each of my two nights I stayed there I got out of bed late, after a party of (ashamed to say this) English tourists had finally gone to bed, and found the fire door which I had closed earlier had been left open. I suppose my point is this: if fire doors are necessary, they are necessary all night, every night - I think the hotel should consider a late patrol (maybe around midnight) to close the doors.

The only exit was the main staircase, which had small chairs quite needlessly placed on landings, and the landing outside my room was cluttered with pointless furnishings, including a small sofa. As the primary fire exit, I think they should try to keep it as clear as possible, as in a fire those bits of furniture could each catch light and make escape even harder. Lots of hotels are at fault about this, I am not singling this one out, but despite fact that guidebooks never seem to consider fire safety, I am sure I am not the only traveller who sometimes has a bad night wondering just how I will get out if the worst comes to the worst.

I don't know the Swiss laws or regulations regarding fire safety, and I've got no reason to believe this good Hotel dont fully comply with them, but my impression is that the Swiss regulations are possibly more akin to those you find in southern Europe than in Northern Europe. I can't imagine such arrangements being accepted in Britain in a 3 star hotel.

I am very concerned about fire safety, and this was by no means the only hotel I have stayed in where I had a quibble about this - and it's not the hotels fault if guests will not close a fire door! I have made staff unblock exits in some other hotels I have stayed in (do people ever actually check the supposed fire exit?). It's worth actually checking the fire exit if there is one, sometimes there are serious obstacles such as laundry trolleys that would make fire exists unusable in an emergency).

Otherwise, it's great, clean, friendly, professional, well located and very good value!