Montebelo Mosteiro de Alcobaca Historic Hotel

The peaceful atmosphere, excellent breakfast, and bar and restaurant on site made this a lovely stay. We also enjoyed walking to shops and restaurants in town. The furnishings are appropriately minimalist to fit with the monastery. We tried the heated pool too, where bathing caps are required and cost 5¢ at reception. We'll be back.

The rooms are huge and the food was good. It's a very cool hotel venue, well located within town. It still seems like a bit of a work in progress and should get better with time. The spa and pool area had very loud acoustics.

The hotel's location right next to the site is great, and the rooms are good. Walking through the halls feels unique and haunting. It's an awe inspiring place, and I had a positive experience overall.

The building is beautiful, but the rooms and halls felt stark and plain, much like the monastery it once was. There's nothing on the walls, just heat radiators to look at in your room. It has no soul, and the decoration is sparse. The large room came with a small bottle of cherry liquor, which was appreciated, and breakfast was good, though uncovered on the buffet with no sneeze guard. During the Sunday rush, staff seemed unhappy and couldn't refill empty plates quickly enough. The spa was disappointing too. I booked partly for the pool, then learned at check-in that a bathing cap is required and has to be bought. That's ridiculous. Most people use the one elevator by check-in, so expect to wait. There's another elevator you can only reach by going through the spa across from check-in. When we needed the front desk, no one answered the phone, so we had to make the long walk from our room to that elevator. We never found the stairs. There's a restaurant, but with no reviews available we chose to eat elsewhere. Given our breakfast experience, that seemed prudent. This isn't a five star hotel or experience, and we wouldn't return with so many better options.