Hotel Christiania

The location is excellent and the waiting staff were friendly. Service in the restaurant was generally fast and there’s a heated bootroom and separate cabin to store skis just by the back door.

Our room was cold when we arrived with no way to heat it as the pump is switched off in the evening due, ironically, to noise. It took hours to warm up. We had a room which appeared to have been carved out of the bar and restaurant area. The wall was board and the noise levels up to way past midnight were horrendous. We asked to be moved and were told the hotel has a policy of not moving anyone! The main areas were clean and pleasant but our room was scruffy and dirty. The corners of the carpet were thick with dust as was the ancient radiator. The bathroom had a large gap in the tiles between the bath and the wall, all around the shower was mildewed and the toilet and sink pipes were dirty and exposed. The plastic cabinet was missing a bulb. The bed was hard as were the pillows. The food was someone’s poor idea of haute cuisine. Tiny portions (for skiers!) laid out to look pretty with a few adornments such as bits of preserved lemon. You get a starter followed by what looks to be the entrée but turns out to be your main. I laughed out loud when one tidy dish arrived on a beetroot purée splatter. I think the chef may be a Masterchef fan. Breakfast is an option of unlimited croissants and bread, fruit, yoghurts, meat and cheese but it’s the same type of slices of cooked ham and cheese every day and fruit was orange wedges, whole satsumas and bananas. No fruit salad and if you don’t like bread the cooked breakfast option would be one slice of bacon cut in two with a poached egg and tomato garnish or, another day, two cocktail sausages with a serving spoon’s worth of scrambled egg. Everything other than bread is heavily rationed. The hotel is ran by a Scotsman and lots of the guests are Scottish and spend time around the bar, together. It feels a little like a members club. The front steps were dangerously damaged and crumbling and weren’t addressed all the time we were there. It feels like a hotel in serious need of more experienced management.