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Let me know what we need to see there. We're going in late November.

Once my trip is finished, will list out what's worth checking out; Madrid definitely offers A LOT to tour and see.

Meanwhile, reading @Cincydawg's entertaining post on his time in Amsterdam, and my weeklong reaction to Madrid just so happens to be the opposite, with the city seeming remarkably more cleaned up than the rest of Europe's larger cities.

As a severe heatwave leads the headlines across Europe, with temperatures topping 40C (over 100F) in France, and temperature records tumbling across Germany, Italy, and Denmark, by contrast the weather is surprisingly mild here in Madrid, cooled by steady morning rains, and, along with the breeze stirring through the sidewalk trees, it makes for an even more walkable day across the city.

By afternoon, sunlight brightens the facades of buildings, and block after block, it’s as refreshing as the rain to walk streets so unmarked by graffiti or trash collecting along the curbs – Madrid appears more polished than Europe’s other larger cities such as Paris and Naples. By early evening, World Cup matches air in café bars. Sunlight until 10PM.

One of central Madrid's side streets (if this were Paris graffiti would be visible on the building exteriors and trash would be accumulated along the curbs):

My Amsterdam experiences (2)

The people are wonderful - kind, helpful, generous, they love US Americans. Very clean city (sounds like this has changed??). Great restaurants. Easy transportation. Interesting architecture. Cool vibe. Cool street food and market scenes. History.

This is what "people" told us pretrip which is why it was high on our list to visit.  We missed the great restaurants with one exception.  Transportation was OK, the subway cars are not AC'd except in first class and then barely.  We hit up one street vendor for lunch, that one was mediocre, but others of course could be much better, it was middle eastern.  

We got off on a really bad foot with our hotel, which was centrally located, but had a LOT of issues.  Then all the litter and butts literally everywhere om amy commercial area.  The residential areas were better, but still pretty dirty.  The canals were dirty also, and smelled bad in places.

We were scheduled to fly through Minneapolis, the direct flight out was a lot more money.  Then that first flight was delayed so I went on the Delta app and with about four entries scheduled us for a direct flight out of ATL, same class.  That meant we arrived earlier than expected, got to the hotel around 11 AM.  The desk said they would rush to get a room ready for us, and call when it was ready.  Usually with Hilton (this was a Doubletree) this means you get a room around 1-2 PM.  

I checked every hour at the desk, no room, by 3 PM, listed checkin time, I got a bit surly.  About 45 minutes later I called the Diamond Member desk and after a brief hold, the guy said I could go to the desk and get the room.  I don't know why any of that was needed, we get to the room and it's quite small for an "upgrade" even for Europe, but it was a balcony.  We shower up and take a nap, whatever.  Later the hotel manager shows up with some freebies and an apology, but we continued to have issues with the hotel.  So, all that no doubt influenced my overall impressions to some degree.

But even so, we both thought the place was pretty bad obviously, though we both though The Hague might warrant a visit later, again, but then my wife said nope.

We stayed at the Doubletree next to the train station (took the train from the really nice airport).

We did the same, that hotel is the one where we had all the issues.  I wrote a pretty long letter about them to their manager yesterday.


I'll begin with our check in.  We made a late change to get on an earlier flight, so we arrived at the hotel too early to check in, around 1030.  I explained to the desk person who told me we could check in early being Diamond members, and he'd let us know when the room was ready.  I took that to mean maybe 1:30 or 2:00.  So, we waited,  At 1 PM I went to the desk and was told it wasn't ready, OK fine, went and had lunch, went again at 2 PM, room not ready, no explanation, no communication.  I went again at 3 PM, listed as check in time, room still not ready, the lobby by now was crowded with people trying to check in.  I was tired from an 8 hour plane flight and little sleep, so I called the Diamond desk around 3:40 and after being on hold a bit, was told by them to go to the desk our room was NOW ready.  No one at the hotel told me anything, but we got into the room, finally.  It was supposedly an upgrade, 923, but of course rather small even for Europe, but the balcony was nice.  However, the room was not very clean, there was debris on the floor.  My wife is from Paris and she was not really happy with the cleaning, but we're tired, so we shower and rest some.

Each time we walked through the lobby during our stay around 3 PM it was packed with people who looked rather unhappy, sitting with luggage, apparently also unable to check in.  We tried to avoid the lobby when possible.

The manager came up later that day, which was nice, and gave us some HH points and a drink coupon, so we decided to have something to eat.  I guess the restaurants are not managed by Hilton, but aside from breakfast they were rather poor in quality and value.  I tried to use the drink coupon for gin and tonics at the bar and was told the drink coupons wouldn't work there, though a few days later I showed them again and was told they were fine, same drinks.  It ended up being rather pricey for a pretty mediocre pizza.  At one point sitting at the bar we overheard the apparent manager dressing down an employee over something, this should be done away from customers.

So, now the elevators,  One of them didn't work the entire time.  The other three would pass us by going down, even though we had the button lit.  The button would go off, but the elevator wouldn't stop at our floor.  This happened on numerous occasions.  Needless to say we spent a lot of time waiting on an elevator.  The room keys stopped working, we had to get new ones, I tried using the Hilton key with my phone, it worked, then didn't work, then worked, then didn't work.  Wifi was also internittent and required us to relog in several times.  

Around Day 8 some technicians knocked and said they needed access for five minutes, well, OK, they struggled with the TV for a bit, did something to it, replaced it, and left a mess on the floor of small pieces of debris.  Those pieces were still there the next day after the room had been "serviced", the same with the hallways which were dirty most of the stay.  Our towels occasionally were spotted with yellow spots maybe 3 cm in diameter, my wife asked for more towels so we could find some apparently clean ones.  Twice the phone rang and no one was on the line.  

At some point, I gave up trying to make anything right and just decided to "live with it".  We were happy to check out and move on.  I cannot recall having such a poor experience overall with any Hilton property.  Maybe there is a problem finding enough competent employees to properly service the property, but it was pretty bad, especially at that price.  We had recently stayed two weeks at a Hilton in Vienna and had a wonderful stay there.  I am sorry to have to respond with such a negative review, but perhaps it will be of some help in fixing some of these issues.

My wife said no more travel for a while, but we have a transatlantic cruises out of NYC in September.

One other problem for us, now, is we've gotten used to this "Premium Comfort" class on a plane.  

...Amsterdam...

The city frankly is a major dump, there was litter everywhere blowing about, cigarette butts almost covering the ground, we get hit with the smell of marijuana about every ten feet which neither of us like.  The houses and canals are, well, quaint, but after a few blocks that gets repetitive, and the canals were filthy and smelly in places.  On top of all this was the heat wave which hit Europe.  We were taking two showers a day, and going out in the morning and mostly staying in the hotel in the PM, going out for dinner.  We did find one restaurant that was excellent called Lastage, we went twice, it wasn't cheap, but food was quite good.

Amsterdam, the NOLA of Europe.  

I had no problems there.

This is what "people" told us pretrip which is why it was high on our list to visit.  We missed the great restaurants with one exception.  Transportation was OK, the subway cars are not AC'd except in first class and then barely.  We hit up one street vendor for lunch, that one was mediocre, but others of course could be much better, it was middle eastern. 

We got off on a really bad foot with our hotel, which was centrally located, but had a LOT of issues.  Then all the litter and butts literally everywhere om amy commercial area.  The residential areas were better, but still pretty dirty.  The canals were dirty also, and smelled bad in places.

We were scheduled to fly through Minneapolis, the direct flight out was a lot more money.  Then that first flight was delayed so I went on the Delta app and with about four entries scheduled us for a direct flight out of ATL, same class.  That meant we arrived earlier than expected, got to the hotel around 11 AM.  The desk said they would rush to get a room ready for us, and call when it was ready.  Usually with Hilton (this was a Doubletree) this means you get a room around 1-2 PM. 

I checked every hour at the desk, no room, by 3 PM, listed checkin time, I got a bit surly.  About 45 minutes later I called the Diamond Member desk and after a brief hold, the guy said I could go to the desk and get the room.  I don't know why any of that was needed, we get to the room and it's quite small for an "upgrade" even for Europe, but it was a balcony.  We shower up and take a nap, whatever.  Later the hotel manager shows up with some freebies and an apology, but we continued to have issues with the hotel.  So, all that no doubt influenced my overall impressions to some degree.

But even so, we both thought the place was pretty bad obviously, though we both though The Hague might warrant a visit later, again, but then my wife said nope.

You have to like the Diamond desk.  Any time we have an issue, give them a call and it is amazing how quick things get resolved. 

But truth be told we usually don't have trouble with Hilton hotels except in Europe.