Altstadt Hotel

The rooms were spacious, clean, and very good, and the staff were friendly. Breakfast had good options too. The central location was also quiet. The main drawback was having nowhere to leave luggage for a few hours after checkout. We had to carry it around or go to the main station and rent a locker.

I was exhausted after a long trip from the US and being awake for 24 hours, but the desk required payment for the whole stay before I could see the room. I asked to look first and was told to pay. It was a hot day, and the fourth-floor room was unbearably hot. I understand that lifts and air conditioning aren’t common in Heidelberg’s old town, but this room was impossible to sleep in. The window only opened a crack, so there was no airflow, and the open blinds had let the sun heat the room all day. They couldn’t offer a fan, AC unit, or another room on a lower floor. I knew I had to work for the next four days and wouldn’t be able to sleep there, so I asked to leave and get my money back. I hadn’t even been in the room for an hour. The woman at the desk refused. I offered to pay for the first night and cancel the rest, but that was refused too. They cited a 10-day cancellation policy, which seems excessive compared with other hotels. I was told the manager would be in during the mornings that week, but each time I called or visited, I was told the manager wasn’t there. Two emails to the address they gave me went unanswered. They knew the top-floor room would be boiling that day. It felt like a SCAM to make me pay for the whole stay before seeing it. Having no fan or other option was crazy, and “it was a hot day” wasn’t a good enough explanation. Good service would have meant telling me about the heat and asking me to check the room before paying. Instead, they took my money and left me to sort it out later. What a rip off. The first days of my trip were ruined, I had to find another hotel, and kept coming back when the manager was supposedly going to be there. I’m usually reasonable about hotel rooms and don’t care much about fancy amenities as long as I can sleep and shower. This experience was awful, with a lot of lies and frustration.

The Altstadt Hotel is tucked into a narrow old Heidelberg street, with a tiny sign and a beautiful heritage door. It’s easy to miss when you arrive. The concierge was gracious and friendly, and the ground-floor breakfast room serves a generous buffet of European foods. The coffee was especially good. The hotel may be listed as a *** property, but I’d rate it much higher. There are, I believe, 14 modest rooms across four floors, yet mine, room 45, felt like a tiny apartment with three areas. The sleeping area had a heavenly memory foam bed, a down comforter, an oversized pillow, a second bed for a companion, plus a small desk, lamp, and TV. Beside it was a lounge with a stylish couch, table, coat rack, and dormer window overlooking a private courtyard and Heidelberg’s green hills, the same view you get from the sleeping area. The private bathroom was bright, shiny clean, and had everything needed. Getting to the room means climbing a lovely old winding staircase. Coming back down starts a wonderful walk over cobblestones, past a shop full of fresh seasonal flowers, and into a mostly pedestrian area of shops, cafes, historic buildings, and people. Watch for bicycles, they’re everywhere, with their own paths. Heidelberg feels very progressive. The Altstadt is perfectly placed for getting around by bike, bus, and tram, and it’s a short walk to the Neckar River, its old bridges, racing scullers, and leafy parks full of young students and older keepers of a remarkable Germanic culture. I’ve never experienced a place as beautiful and progressive as Heidelberg, and my lovely stay at the Altstadt Hotel made it feel like home, even temporarily.

The staff were nice, and the location was convenient. But once it got above 26 degrees Celsius, the hotel turned into an oven, far too hot for summer. WiFi above the second floor, the first floor in German terms, was extremely poor. At 0.09 Mbps, I couldn’t get any work done, and pages took forever to load. Keep that in mind if you have limited data while traveling internationally. The manager was often away as well.