Pantone Hotel Belgium is the Only One of its Kind

When organising a beer tour of Belgium for your boyfriend, it is important that you, the woman, should choose the hotel. If you are like me, you would choose all aspects of every holiday, because women are better at these things. Don't get upset, I am a card-carrying feminist like everyone should be these days, however, hotel and holiday organising is better for women to arrange. If left up to men, the whole city-break would be inside a bar, with some flea-bitten rat-hole crash-pad to get romantic in, awaiting us every night. And he would think it clean.

Step one involves finding the hotel. Despite any Airmiles, Tesco Points, Groupon or other type of lure, tempting me to choose a package deal, I look independently. Nine times out of ten, you will pay less, organising your hotel seperately from your flight. Have Google Maps ready, to check if hotels are within shouting distance of the active district. The last thing you want is a city-break in surburbia. Next, browse, and determine what a mid-price hotel costs. Decide now if you can afford to visit this city, because if you can't afford the middle-range hotels, the standard of living, and the cost of a pint, will seem expensive to you.

Do Not Enter "Cheap Hotels" into the Search Engine

Trust me. I've done this experiment on my computer and a friends, over the telephone, at the same time. The results are exactly the same. Every major company with good SEO has linked words like "cheap" and "free" to their hotel packages, so you will get them all coming up on such a search. Don't waste your finger strokes. Time is precious. You are much better off starting your hotel search with group that specialises in hotels. Laterooms, lastminute, travelzoo, you get the idea. Choose one and search for the location you want. Identify your price range and find the hotel you like. Then go to the other sites, searching specifically for the hotel, or the hotel directly, and compare until you have the best price. Book from the cheapest, simple.

Pantone Hotel www.pantonehotel.com

The first in a plan to expand the concept, the brand new Pantone Hotel caught my eye, because in a city like Brussels, you want to stay somewhere charmingly architectural. Upon perusing many of the hotels on offer, the city seemed to me, to love design. With 11th century buildings gracing The Grand Place, and a history of brewing beer in monastries, going back to the 4th century, Belgium is a country proud of thinking outside the box, and creating beauty.

Upon talking to the owners, I just had to mention the bed we slept in. I caught up on a year's sleep, and we brightly thanked them when we departed. Belgians are not very warm towards tourists, you will find, but this endorsement of the hotel furniture lit a fire in our host's eyes. I love it when you strike a match with someone while on holiday. Turns out, they spent months researching hotel beds to find the most comfortable and made it a specific priority, because they had never had a good sleep in a hotel. I asked for the name of the company that made the beds, but I won't reveal it here, because hard work should be rewarded. Go and stay at their hotel and ask them yourselves.

Suffice to say, our break was very romantic.