HOTEL MIAU MADRID = HIGH VALUE, PERFECT LOCATION

WITH 10 STAR STAFF AND LAVISH WARM BREAKFAST

There must be 1,000 historic buildings, boasting food, drink, dessert -- very nearby Hotel Miau Madrid.

I only used rideshare once -- on a rainy day when I was visiting an historic cemetery outside the old city.

The well-trained and warm staff gave suggestions for a pair of authentic tapas bars that were within 5 minutes walking distance.

Staff also respected my request for limited housekeeping. 

Many places ignore this, but Miau's team is on top of everything.

HOTEL MIAU MADRID = HIGH VALUE, PERFECT LOCATION

WITH 10 STAR STAFF AND LAVISH WARM BREAKFAST

The Hotel Miau Madrid's fridge is sleek looking and saves space with the wall mount. 

The only thing is it is cool, not really cold.

I could not find a knob to adjust it to a colder setting. 

While this was fine for sodas and bottled water, some milk I had for medication was not cold enough.

I worried a bit that it would spoil within a couple days, vs the 10 day expiry on the label.

 Once again, this is a very small deficiency at a very excellent boutique hotel.

HOTEL MIAU MADRID = HIGH VALUE, PERFECT LOCATION

WITH 10 STAR STAFF AND LAVISH WARM BREAKFAST

Hotel Miau Madrid reviews mention hallway noise and I must say they are correct.

It is odd that the double doors tamp down raucous sound from Plaza Santa Ana, but the interior modern renovation lets noise in.

Each night, I heard fellow guests talking in the hallway (the rooms are small, so groups in 2 or 3 rooms seemed to hover in the hallway at all hours. 

They were not drinking or making trouble -- just talking loud enough to disturb my sleep.

Breakfast starts at 8 a.m. It is lavish, so it is hard to complain. 

Plus I understand that Spaniards eat small breakfasts much later than Americans.

But maybe opening at 7 a.m. on weekdays and 7:30 a.m. on weekends would be a compromise. 

I'm an early riser. 

I had to kill time before the breakfast room (2 doors down from hotel) opened. 

Again, my words are more advice than complaint.

HOTEL MIAU MADRID = HIGH VALUE, PERFECT LOCATION

WITH 10 STAR STAFF AND LAVISH WARM BREAKFAST

The Hotel Miau Madrid's rooms are small but quite efficient -- with a wall mounted fridge capable of cooling a soda, beer and few bottles of water.

The price point for a perfect location in May was under 200 USD fully loaded -- delicious breakfast and taxes included.

Miau -- yes it has a cat theme in its logo, etc. -- is very close to Sol, the biggest transit station in Madrid. Anton Martin and others are close by too.

Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Opera, Prado, El Rastro, Gran Via and dozens of top areas are no more than 15 minutes walking distance.

HOTEL MIAU MADRID = HIGH VALUE, PERFECT LOCATION

WITH 10 STAR STAFF AND LAVISH WARM BREAKFAST

Hotel Miau Madrid's soundproofing for busy and boisterous adjacent Plaza Santa Ana is amazing. 

I could hear faint sounds, but the double doors provided quiet nights in a roof with a small balcony and historic views.

The breakfast is beyond lavish. 

Most free breakfasts are crappy little cold food huts. 

The buffet has variety, hot foods, gourmet coffee and a super hardworking staff person.

My bed was super firm and comfy.

The bathroom is large and the shower tube had lots of hot water.

HOTEL MIAU MADRID = HIGH VALUE, PERFECT LOCATION

WITH 10 STAR STAFF AND LAVISH WARM BREAKFAST

Hotel Miau Madrid's location is perfect. It is a 15 minute walk from virtually every museum, arts facility, jazz room, fine dining, mercado, tapas crawl, etc. that you would want to visit in heart of the city.

The staff is amazing.

This is a tiny, boutique hotel with barely a lobby.

I was not 100% sure it was staffed 24/7. 

Not only is it staffed, but its English speaking front desk crew is responsive in person and to emails.

Staff helped me plan for the trip and helped hugely during -- even got me a doctor in less than an hour when I couldn't shake a cold.

HOTEL ANTRE CHAPULTEPEC GUADALAJARA

PERFECT LOCATION, INCREDIBLE VALUE, 

TOP-NOTCH STAFF FOR PROSPEROUS VISIT

Hotel Antre Chapultepec staff is outstanding about explaining the price, departure times, etc. of the tours it sells from the front desk.

I wish it would affiliate with a better tour provider than Jalisco Tour Mendez.

Both daylong tours that I took spent an endless amount of time stopping at horrible restaurants and tourists traps that likely pay the tour company a kickback for depositing hapless tourists at their doorstep.

The base price of the tours is 25 USD -- at that low price, you get a tour that only rates about 2.5 on a scale of one to 5.

 

 

HOTEL ANTRE CHAPULTEPEC GUADALAJARA

PERFECT LOCATION, INCREDIBLE VALUE, 

TOP-NOTCH STAFF FOR PROSPEROUS VISIT

Hotel Antre Chapultepec’s room temperature control is fixed.

You have to ask the front desk to send a person up to set it.

That means you only have a choice of air conditioning on or off -- you cannot adjust it to you comfort.

Please, treat guests like adults, and remove the governor on the temperature settings that can only be overridden with a code used by management.

The breakfast buffet was about 14 USD -- very high by Guadalajara standards.

I checked it out and while it looked clean, it really didn't appear to be worth the money.

I could not justify paying more than 20% of my daily room rate on a breakfast that was not cooked to order and had no luxury items on the buffet tables.

HOTEL ANTRE CHAPULTEPEC GUADALAJARA

PERFECT LOCATION, INCREDIBLE VALUE, 

TOP-NOTCH STAFF FOR PROSPEROUS VISIT

The Centro Historico is a 20 minute walk -- or a rideshare under USD 5 with tip – from Hotel Antre Chapultepec.

Tlaquepaque and Zapopan are about a half hour (45 minutes with traffic) 10 USD rideshare trip to visit those historic and vibrant neighborhoods.

The room had a large desk for working and room enough for a small fainting couch by the large balcony.

I would gladly stay again. 

And I wish every major city had a centrally-located, cost-effective Hotel Antre.

HOTEL ANTRE CHAPULTEPEC GUADALAJARA

PERFECT LOCATION, INCREDIBLE VALUE, 

TOP-NOTCH STAFF FOR PROSPEROUS VISIT

The fabulous working class Santa Tere neighborhood, with dozens of outstanding foodie spots, is a 12 minute walk north of the Hotel Antre Chapultepec.

GDL is a gastronomic mecca -- with amazingly fresh and fabulous seafood for not being a coastal city.

With a smooth check in and bilingual staff, Hotel Antre sets you up for all the cultural delights that GDL has to offer.

Jalisco state also is ground zero for outstanding coffee production.

Several of the best coffee purveyors in all of Mexico are within walking distance of the property.

HOTEL ANTRE CHAPULTEPEC GUADALAJARA

PERFECT LOCATION, INCREDIBLE VALUE, 

TOP-NOTCH STAFF FOR PROSPEROUS VISIT

Hotel Antre Chapultepec’s daily maid service brought two large bottles of water and cleaned -- while honoring my request to not remake my bed.

The front desk arranged a tour for me and helped estimate the price of a car service.

The room has tons of outlets -- regular prong and USB -- for recharging.

Antre Chapultepec is in the heart of Colonia Americana -- voted the hippest neighborhood on earth (as judged by Time Out Magazine).

Endless upscale and down home restaurants, bakeries, shops, street art and early 20th century architecture are within easy walking distance.

HOTEL ANTRE CHAPULTEPEC GUADALAJARA

PERFECT LOCATION, INCREDIBLE VALUE, 

TOP-NOTCH STAFF FOR PROSPEROUS VISIT

The Hotel Antre Chapultepec is modern, perfectly-located and well-run.

I asked a lot of questions before my arrival and the staff answered each of them expertly.

The hotel is very near Chapultepec and its noisy bars and clubs plus it is on one of the city's busiest streets -- but I only heard a minor roar on my 10th floor, sound proofed room.

I had a fabulous balcony with southern exposure.

The room was large for a price well under 100 USD per day.

The walk-in shower had endless warm water.

 

GOLDFINCHES LODGING IN TREME

GREAT LOCATION FOR EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO DO IN NEW ORLEANS

For a super urban neighborhood just south of Claiborne Avenue, Goldfinches was relatively quiet at night.

I heard a little bit music from the Candlelight Lounge that’s a block away. The last night I did not sleep well at all.

There was a lot of noise from an adjacent room. Not people partying, just lots of banging around the thuds.  

So be advised, Goldfinches is a house carved up into a bunch of rooms with walls thinner than a hotel’s.

Pack ear plugs and appreciate the low price point of the lodging.

GOLDFINCHES LODGING IN TREME

GREAT LOCATION FOR EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO DO IN NEW ORLEANS

Probably the biggest negative is there’s really only a tiny window in the Goldfinches’ room so there’s very little natural light because half of that window is taken up by the air conditioning unit.

I’m the kind of person it out and about 16 hours a day, so I just needed to sleep, so the darkness was fine.

But those that need a little natural light might be slightly disappointed. One small negative is it’s three steps up into the bathroom.

One night I tripped and fell on those steps.

Some have commented that the room is too small, but I stayed nearly a week and never felt claustrophobic.

GOLDFINCHES LODGING IN TREME

GREAT LOCATION FOR EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO DO IN NEW ORLEANS

It’s a tad confusing getting through a gate and storing bags in an outdoor locker, but the staff was amazing.

They addressed every need and every question -- and I’m the kind of person to ask lots of questions.

They had a list of about two dozen things like food, places, offbeat, museums little bars, not so well-known coffee, shops.

All of their recommendations were outstanding.

They mentioned a couple of careworn corner food stores that a tourist would normally never go to.

But I got fabulous Po-boys and gumbo based on their recommendations.

Bottom line, I paid under $100 per night for a room that gave me access to everything I wanted to do in New Orleans.

GOLDFINCHES LODGING IN TREME

GREAT LOCATION FOR EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO DO IN NEW ORLEANS

New Orleans has a crime issue and Treme is not a gilded neighborhood, but I always felt 100% safe and walked everywhere.

I never took a taxi home to Goldfinches.

I got home after midnight from seeing the great New Orleans music and I walked the back streets of Treme to see different architecture and unique things while getting back to the room I never felt endangered in the least.

GOLDFINCHES LODGING IN TREME

GREAT LOCATION FOR EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO DO IN NEW ORLEANS

The Goldfinches room is small but very efficient. I love that there were pots and pans, a microwave and a regular oven.

You can heat up leftovers of the great New Orleans food after storing them in a dorm-sized fridge to that worked perfectly.

The shower has nice long lasting hot water.

The bed was comfortable and there was a little table to eat breakfast at.

The room has good air conditioning and it also has a portable space heater for the cooler winter nights.

GOLDFINCHES LODGING IN TREME

GREAT LOCATION FOR EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO DO IN NEW ORLEANS

There are a lot of pluses about Goldfinches’ great location.

You can easily walk into the French Quarter.

It’s also in the heart of Treme and its attractions such as the Backstreets Cultural Museum, Petite Jazz Museum, a couple cool independent coffee shops and the incomparable Kermit’s Mother-In-Law Lounge on Claiborne Avenue.

On the other side of Claiborne is the Laffite Greenway, which you can walk through Mid-City all the way to Bayou Saint John.

There is a bus line along Claiborne just to the north and Rampart Street just to the south, for good transit connections.

GABRIEL BALDERAS SAXAPHONE

THE BEST JAZZMAN IN MEXICO CITY

Gabriel Balderas is not famous – yet – but I consider him the premier jazz player in Mexico City.

And that’s no small statement, as there are easily a half dozen or more jazz venues in the cultural capital of the Americas.

I lucked out when I walked into Parker and Lenox – in the Roma neighborhood – and heard Gabriel on the sax.

At the end of the show, I started out in my horrible Spanish and we quickly switched to his English to talk about jazz greats, Mexico City and music.

A few nights later, I was at Jazzatlan Capital, also in the hip Roma neighborhood, and caught Gabriel sitting in with the night’s featured act.

Seeing me twice in one week, he was so kind that he gave me a CD of his fabulous Voices From The Border.

You can check him out at many different streaming services, including Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/58qSHv8M0ELKIDSObDqEFH?si=nX3om57RS3-AKvy6VeXDOw&utm_source=copy-link&fbclid=IwAR2T6GfpMUrYh9PtCPZFno_gtz6fgbNuMfBe3dSOoAZa2_98A-Z1O3GsN_0&nd=1

ROCK N BOWL

NEARLY A QUARTER CENTURY OF NEW ORLEANS LIVE MUSIC

Finally made it to Rock N Bowl -- Christmas Eve of All times.

Where else but in New Orleans can you check the WWOZ live wire, wondering if anyone is playing Xmas Eve or Day...only to find yes, dozens and dozens of places are open even then.

Sadly, we never made it to the famous Mid-City Lanes original location.

The new one was walking distance from where we stayed in Hollygrove. Yes, that Hollygrove that birthed Lil Wayne and Cash Money Records.

It was old timers night when we went. We're in our 50s and were the youngins'

We returned our last night for some Zydeco, as Rock N Bowl has hosted some of the all-time greats.

http://www.rocknbowl.com/