Hotel Acropolis

My room was clean, quiet, and pleasant, and I couldn't have been luckier to find Hotel Acropolis for my short stay in Lourdes. It's an easy walk from the train station. I followed the light blue line to Chateau Fort/Pyrenean Museum, les Halles for lunch, the Sanctuary Notre Dame de Lourdes, and Bernadette's Cave, both day and night. Breakfast in the bar and an evening beer on the terrace with the owners and other guests were both a delight. I highly recommend it.

Lydie made sure we felt cared for throughout our stay at Hotel Acropolis. My brother, our Dad, and I stayed there from October 4 to 9 during a wonderful trip to Lourdes and Paris, and we're truly grateful for the accommodation. Our flight from Paris landed after 9 PM local Lourdes time, so we reached the hotel close to 10. Lydie came out as soon as we stepped from our service van, welcomed us, and brought us in to pay and go over the details. We were still worn out and adjusting to the local time the next morning, and had overslept. At about 8:30 AM, she called our room to remind my dad that breakfast ended at 9. We managed to understand each other despite the language barrier, and she took extra care to explain herself. She suggested we visit Lac de Lourdes (Lake Lourdes) that Monday, printed the bus schedules, and showed me the stops just around the corner from the hotel. Breakfast included the usual French breads, deli meats, boiled eggs, fruit, and coffee, along with cereal, yogurt, oats, and granola. Lydie made it herself, and the baguettes came fresh from the oven. We always looked forward to them. There are 25 rooms, and Lydie cleans them herself. Whenever we returned from a day's outings, our room was immaculate, with the sheets neatly tucked in, our belongings arranged, and the bathroom fresh and clean. On our last day, after I paid what we owed, each of us hugged her to show how much we appreciated her care.

We only stayed briefly, but it was very comfortable and pleasant. The hosts were friendly and helpful.

The people running the hotel behaved in a frightening way, and that made the whole stay terrible. One night during dinner, the woman managing the place screamed at our group and leader like a maniac, saying children had been left upstairs without parental supervision. The children on our pilgrimage were actually at dinner with their parents. The few people upstairs were quiet young adults who had chosen to rest instead of joining the meal. She wouldn't listen to reason and only got more agitated. I thought our group was very good, and we'd come to Lourdes to join the prayers. My room was tiny, like a sardine can, and the food wasn't good. There was almost nowhere to sit in a public area beyond a small bar and the dining room. A few tables out front were often damp and wet. The small elevator broke down with some of our group inside, though they fixed it fairly quickly. The town was rather cold. My room only had a small electric heating fan in the closet. It heated the room too much and made it dry, and the setting was difficult to change, so it was either hot with the fan or cold without it. Some in our group said their rooms were cold because there was no fan in their closets. The hotel could have been acceptable apart from the frightening conduct of the people running it.