So, while Steinblog was about my scientific life and event or news related to it, my travel blog reported about two other aspects, the need to travel a lot and the better and less good places that I encounter as well as my passion for good food (liquid and solid) and the places where you get it. I called this travel blog “Reports from a quest for quality and silence” because that’s what it is. And quality and silence is hard to find.

A short while ago I stayed at the Marriott Metro Center in Washington during the 2009 ACS Fall National Meeting. The first night was good, the room is nice and reasonably quiet, as requested. My satisfaction received a first hit when I tried to have breakfast the morning after and, after being seated, found myself  between two competing sources of loud music, one from the lobby and one from the bar in the breakfast restaurant. So much for my quest for silence The local starbucks did a much better job, so I had breakfast there. Overall, the Marriott Metro Center gets a good rating:

Location: 8/10, two blocks away from the conference center, $50 by taxi from the airport.

Room: 7/10 Could be bigger but well fitted with everything you need. Nice wide LCD TV. Internet for $12 a day.

Lobby and Chill-out areas: 5/10. Lobby area is too small, as is the seating area with too few sofas and chairs.

Breakfast: 3/10 See above. Couldn’t really test it but even without the music the place feels a bit like eating in the middle of a highway.

Room Service and Laundry: 8/10, Fast, reliable.

Concierge: 8/10 Very friendly and professional.

Gym: 9/10, well equipped, spacey, every machine you need, yoga mats available.

Overall, my impression was more like 7/10.

I can whole-heartedly recommend this hotel and will go there again when in Cologne next time.

The Crown Plaza’s staff was, with the usual exceptions, crabby and unfriendly, and – even worse – horrendously disorganized. The regular category of rooms (the stuff that you get when you do not ask for anything smart) was loud, small and ugly. Trying to get something decent away from the street was possible but hard. The breakfasts on the following days were characterized by being treated like a fraudster because they did not manage to put our names paired with the correct room number on their list of people to be admitted to the restaurant for breakfast.

It was impossible to get a correct recommendation from the concierge on how to get to the centre. Staff tried to sell overpriced tickets as it turned out later. An attempt to get our hands on our voucher (delivered to staff at check-in) to check for the pick-up time to the airport, resulted in 30 min of hectic searching by the people behind the counter. Yet without success.

So, again, avoid this place, even if you have business in the area.

At the Duxford lodge, you’ll have your aperitif at the bar and will be guided to your table just before the food is ready. This procedure seemed to be standard. If an Anglo-Saxon gourmet reads this, could he or she please enlighten me if this is that case?

Well, anyway. I asked for a Kir and got a sweet, cassis-laden warm mixture. I must say I prefer this with a very dry wine, just a dash of cassis and reasonably chilled . Enjoying the bar nevertheless – it felt like a time warp with walls covered with fighter-squadron paintings – it was just some 15 minutes before I was led into the dining room.
There, I had the chance to study in greater detail the certificates over the fire place. The restaurant has won the Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence in the every year since 2002. The award is granted by something called AA, whatever that may be (reader, please enlighten me again).

The menu started off with a pre-starter from the chef, a spicy kidney bean soup, which had an extreme
note of Cumin, nothing more than quite ok.The starter was a panfried fois-gras next to Chanterelle Boudin with Sautéd Chicory and an apple terragon emulsion. It came with a glass of a 2005 Wolf Riesling by Dr. Loosen.  This was all quite delicious – my first encounter with Chanterell Boudin – and I’m still not quite sure what that is .

The main course, a pork tenderloin with mashed red potatoes, left mixed memories. The pork was dry, which happens
easily with lean pork but must not happen to a chef with a cullinary excellence award. The mashed red potatoes, however, were wonderful in texture and taste.I had a glass of a 2005 Conti Rossi Pinot Grigio, delightfully negligible as can be expected from a pinot grigio.

For desert, I took a Chocolate Assiette, consisting of White Chocolate Soufflé, Biscuit Pudding, Iced Layered Mousse, Mint Choc Chip Sorbet, strawberry & Milk Chocolate Tartlet – quite palatable.

A problem, as so often, was the music in the dining room – elevator style first, then pop – not quite appropriate.

Overall, I had an enjoyable dinner at the Duxford lodge restaurant.

The Felix’s location is a bit far away in the north, too far to walk if you have a heavy backpack with you. Although quite near to Huntingdon road, the heavy traffic is not recognizable. A taxi to the center was about 10 pounds, if I remember right.

The hotel’s central building is a beautiful Victorian house, spacious, with a nice mix of traditional and modern design elements in the interior. Two modern annexes have been added left and right on the rear side, forming a courtyard. I was in a room on the first floor, directly right of the elevator, which normally is a reason to ask for another room. In this case, however, the elevator was a) not used frequently and b) barely audible. The room itself was looking towards the courtyard, had a nice high ceiling, was equipped with a comfortable king size bed and a spacious bath room with a bath tub.

The “Felix” has a wireless network at a typical and therefore unacceptably high price, but I guess they can charge at these rates because everyone pays them – and so did I.

I very much enjoyed the breakfast, served á la carte in a generous living room where an open fire created a cosy atmosphere. The rest of the guests seemed to be both business men as well as academics visiting the University. Generally, the restaurant can be recommended.

Nice was the subtle understatement of the hotel, the staff was friendly, attentive and not uppish at all. I can very much recommend this place if you don’t mind being a bit farer away from the center.

But let’s start with the good things. As probably all of the places in Oia looking towards the Caldera, the crater resulting from the disastrous outbreak of the Santorini volcano 1600 BC , the view is stunning. The suites are moderately spacy and the staff is friendly and tries to fulfil the wishes of the guest, as long as they are standard. And here is where the problems start. The communal areas of the hotel are all located around a small pool where also breakfast, lunch and dinner are served in small caves. If you don’t insist, the music is turned up to an unbearable level. If you ask for it to be turned down, your request is fulfilled and minutes later the level comes up again. You can do this three times and then the discussion starts. “It’s the policy of the hotel”, is the first answer to your “Why”. Further dispute ends with the typical “I only work here” and “Talk to the manger”.

So, you go back to your room – but only to find it as a victim of a chemical assault A so-called “air freshener” has been used by the room maid in such an amount that breathing get hard and asthmatic attacks follow. I thought this might have been an insect repellent used only on the first day but it wasn’t. After the room being “made up” in this way, it was not usable for more than three hours. Since the rooms are carved into the crater walls, air exchange through the small window in front is slow. We asked the room service to stop these assaults for the rest of our time being here, which worked.

Directly next to the potentially most private senior and superior suites in the hotel, there is the laundry and assembly point of the personnel, always accommodating a large enough number of people to create a constant stream of loud chatter in Greek and Russian, starting at 8 am in the morning. The place could be wonderfully quiet. Maybe this is again the policy of the hotel, so the guest do not feel too lonely here.

For a location where one is just supposed to relax in various places, this hotel is a total disaster. The only potential place to hide in silence and shadow is your room, which, again, is in the chatter range of the laundry personnel (not only our room, but a least a hand full). I can only recommend to avoid this hotel if possible.