I can type my blogs on a mobile phone. But how much more convenient to use a laptop. But where can you sit to type in a hotel?
We did a week's tour of Spain and stayed at six hotels. Only one had a double size desk big enough for two people and two upright chairs. How wonderful to be back home and able to use a desk! Or two! And two chairs!
What can you do?
1 You can take turns. One person has a shower. The other person uses a desk.
2 You can ask at reception on the way in if the room has two upright chairs. If not, can they supply one? They might have spare chairs stacked in a dining room ready for weddings and meetings. They might have a chair in an unoccupied room. They might have a spare chair in a bar or restaurant. Your travelling companions in another nearby room might have a chair which they don't use.
3 Sometimes you can use the chair from the balcony.
4 You can use the hotel lounge. Often there is an unoccupied lounge on the floor above the hotel reception. Tell you travelling companions where to find you if they have gone off hiking or shopping or sightseeing or on business.
5 You might use a bathroom stool.
6 You might move a bedside table or balcony table nearer the bed and sit on the bed with your laptop on the table.
7 If the table is too low, you might use a suitcase on a suitcase support as a table. If there is no ledge for a shelf for your knees, save a breakfast tray as an extending shelf for your laptop.
8 An upturned waste bin can act as a knee height side table by a sofa, as a coffee cup table, freeing space for your laptop on a higher coffee and book table.
9 Lie on your bed with your laptop on your lap.
10 Note some beds can be lifted to enable the staff to do bedmaking more easily. This was the case at the Parador hotel in Fuente Dé in the Picos mountains in northern Spain.
11 The suitcase support with hard top suitcase on top can serve as laptop support.
12 Enquire whether n upgrade to a suite will give you a second chair or desk.
13 Book adjoining room with an interconnecting door so you can easily borrow a chair from the room of your family or companions.
14 Take your laptop to the restaurant or bar in a hotel or on a ferry and secure a seat near any socket you need.
Top Marks and To Be Improved at Hotels I visited in Spain and Portugal
Parador Fuente De, Picos de Europa, N Spain
Top Facilities - bidet, balcony, fridge, souvenirs for sale from hall cabinet, games on loan, ground floor terrace for outdoor drinks and meetups, upstairs lounge with view, good location beside cable car, nearby shop for sports wear and sticks beside funicular
To Improve Add - add Spanish Scrabble, add an indoor swimming pool or Jacuzzi for when weather stops the cable car. Second upright chair - we made do with balcony tables but they were not near sockets. Show map and location of main attractions nearby, Potes, and monastery.
Hotel Zenit, Coruna
Great helpful reception gave map.
Add - knowledge of local cafe and location of grave of Sir John Moore, British hero commemorated in poem learned by British schoolchildren
Hotel Casa Grande de Bachao, outside Santiago de Compostela
Top Facilities
Upgrade room in annexe has a balcony
Outdoor pool
To add - remove weeds on walk over grass and intermittent stepping stones to the pool
Resotel, Salamanca
Top Facilities
Garage shop with decorated book-filled eating area and toilet with waterfall tap. Nearby pizza and pasta restaurant with videos, wall displays, under-table glass displays of rock era, bikes, cars.
To add
A second desk chair. Opportunity to buy items in the bedroom and bathroom and hotel such as multi-colour tissues, bathroom mug.
Hotel Bilder, Bilbao
Top Adjacent restaurant serves tapas as well as the hotel breakfast.
Location - walking distance to sights such as bridge, railway station with interior stained glass window, El Corte Ingles department store.
To add change dismal dark lobby, funereal and hard to see, to bright white and clean.
Useful Websites
Bilder Hotel, Bilbao, northern Spain
To add
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