Hospedaria Convento De Tibaes

I liked the concept of remodelling a wing of the Monastery in a contemporary, minimal style to provide guest accommodation. Relaxing and tranquil location. Pleasant, friendly and helpful staff. Reasonably varied and tasty cold buffet breakfast selection with tea or coffee made by staff on request. Plenty of on-site parking spaces available. A bonus was free access to the impressive Monastery itself at any time during opening hours.

I felt that while the overall design concept was good, some of the details were poor and impractical - eg. no handle on sliding windows (you need to use the palm of your hands to slide the windows open); a leather door pull on cupboard door instead of a more conventional handle; only one low-level shower-head holder instead of a riser rail. Glazed bathroom partition walls, presumably conceived to give a sense of more space and provide more light within the room, offered no privacy (I had a single room, but I assume the layout of double rooms was similar). There was an extensive crack (which I reported) in one of the large glazed bathroom panels which is likely to be difficult to rectify. While access to the accommodation is available 24 hours a day, there were two occasions when, on returning mid-evening, I had to wait a good 10 minutes at the front gate before staff were able to respond. I appreciate there's only one member of staff providing cover in the evenings, but this seemed an excessive time to wait - it would have been reassuring if staff had communicated they were on their way via the intercom system as I was beginning to think nobody was available to answer the door.