Hotel Romantik di Condeixa-a-Nova

I visited Portugal on a group tour that included stays at three pousadas. A big takeaway from my experience is that pousadas are remarkably variable. Pousada Mosteiro de Guimaraes was fantastic, and Pousada Castelo Palmela was okay but with some flaws. However, this one, Conimbriga Hotel Do Paço, was abysmal. I recommend you choose your pousada carefully; some are great, but some, such as this one, are bad beyond belief. The hotel itself is nothing special, and a massive disappointment after the delight of the first pousada I visited, Pousada Mosteiro de Guimaraes. This pousada claims to be originally a ‘manor house’, but it just looks like a tatty old house that’s had tacky modern hotel features crudely appended. Tattiness and dirtiness were everywhere. My room was the type that motivates me to avoid touching anything I don’t need to; surfaces were not clean. However, the bed linen was okay, as was the bed. Lots of insects were attracted by the needlessly bright modern garden lights, and doors and windows were left open so they could get inside. Even my hotel key was disgusting: the tag attached to it had an old sticky label which was partly worn away, and its glue residue was holding the accumulated dirt and pocket fluff of innumerable previous guests. Presumably, no one at the hotel could be bothered to clean it. It rather sums up the hotel. Dinner was awful. The dining room’s maître d' was badly dressed in a shabby polo shirt and casual trousers; he looked like it was his job to clean toilets, not greet diners. I was brought soup, and had to request a spoon with which to eat it. Service for me was slow, but I got luckier than my fellow diners – some were waiting two hours for food. I was fortunate enough to have other dining arrangements for my second night in this hotel; some of my fellow diners who did not returned to the hotel with food from grocery stores rather than endure the same dining experience for a second time. Breakfast was also awful. The floor of the breakfast room was wet and slippery, I had to request that it be dried. I also had to request that lights were turned on in the breakfast room, which was dark. Scrambled eggs were strangely lumpy. The toaster was of an impenetrable design. Coffee dispensers ran out of coffee half an hour after breakfast started.