European Inn

The Hallmark Inn felt like a budget hotel, and I came away very disappointed. Even getting parked was a struggle. I arrived and joined about half a dozen other guests hunting for spaces, but couldn’t find one and ended up leaving my car on the pavement outside. There are supposedly 87 rooms, and if they have 87 parking spots too, I’ll eat my hat. The room didn’t help: dated décor, a bed like concrete, paper-thin walls and windows that seemed barely thicker than cling film. No wonder I didn’t sleep, with noisy guests, drunken louts outside and builders starting work across the road at 7am on Sunday. The “view of the city” they gush about turned out to be a four-storey Royal Mail sorting office. Could’ve been worse, I suppose, since some rooms look out over the car park at the back.