Check out a hotel before you check in

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Choosing a hotel? I favor the old-school methodology of strolling alongside the road. You can check a place out before you check in. And, with no web intermediaries to take a slice of the transaction, probably seize a discount too.

On Saturday 2 March, I launched into a five-day journey to Poland and Germany. The solely components I had booked: a Ryanair flight from London Stansted to Lodz in the guts of Poland, and a flight again from Berlin. In between, it was a matter of creating it up as I went alongside. In Lodz’s good-looking essential boulevard, the Hotel Grand lived as much as its title: a magnificent marble staircase led to a well-appointed room with weapons-grade WiFi and a Baltic-sized tub. Entering the breakfast room was like wandering into a grand middle-European ballroom – which it’s, with the added morning bonus of a buffet piled excessive with imperial dishes. And all for the worth of a respectable funds hotel in the UK.

Poznan supplied equally excellent worth. I wanted dependable communications for some broadcasting. Experience exhibits that quaint historic properties don’t at all times excel in delivering web connectivity, so I opted for the Hampton by Hilton on the sting of the stunning Old Town. Four-star high quality at two-star costs, with pleasant workers who let me linger in the foyer lengthy after check-out time.

Next cease: Eisenhüttenstadt, simply throughout the River Oder, which marks the Polish-German border. (This metropolis is the house for the world’s solely Utopia Museum, if you’re questioning what I used to be doing there). With locations to remain skinny on the bottom, I phoned forward to e book the Hotel Fürstenberg. This is the one “attractively embedded in the Oder landscape”. A couple of hours later, once I turned as much as check in, the place was locked and abandoned. After a number of makes an attempt to name once more, the proprietor gave me a code for the important thing field – the place the important thing to room 9 was ready. “Breakfast is at 7.30am,” she instructed in a method that invited no additional dialogue.

At 7.28am, after a evening in a room whose skinny curtains and drained decor shared some DNA with youth hostels, I walked with trepidation all the way down to breakfast. The well-appointed floor flooring stuffed with cheerful, chatty fellow friends and the proprietor herself: generously tattooed and delighted to make scrambled eggs to order, in addition to delivering additional espresso effectively after 9am.

Final cease: the German capital, throughout ITB Berlin. This is the world’s largest journey commerce honest, attracting tens of 1000’s of delegates. It all occurs in the Messe fairgrounds 5 miles west of the town centre. So I hopped off the prepare at Warschauer Strasse station, 5 miles east. I figured the farther from the principle occasion, the higher. This is a district the place I’ve stayed before and which I do know has loads of funds beds. But not that evening: a big music gig on the close by Arena Berlin had stuffed all of them.

Last resort: an web search. All websites pointed in direction of the Weinmeister Berlin, which guarantees it’s “nestled in the pulsating heart of Berlin” and specifies: “Adults only.”

On arrival, there have been certainly no youngsters to disrupt the sense of fashion. I preferred the reception desk, which comprised a useful soul with a laptop computer perched on the finish of a lengthy picket desk. Art, books and arty books have been distributed liberally together with half-a-dozen hipsters (I don’t embrace myself in that depend). Above the bar, a neon signal glowed: “Apokalypse”.

The philosophy of the hotel’s founder, Thomas Tänzer, is stencilled on the glass doorways: “We don’t do hotels; we are in the entertainment industry.” When I walked into the assigned room, 509, I used to be shocked to seek out a rumpled mattress, casually strewn towels and half-consumed bottles. I puzzled if some sudden leisure, probably of an grownup nature, was about to start. I didn’t wait to seek out out, and as an alternative requested to be moved to a room with out indicators of very latest occupation.

The last tally: £549. Almost half of this went on the ultimate evening in Berlin, a dynamically priced £271. Perhaps I ought to have shared with the thriller occupant of 509 in spite of everything.

Simon Calder, also referred to as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about journey for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key journey concern – and what it means for you.