Review of Hotel Le Palais, by Angela Moore

Hotel Le Palais is a lovely Belle Epoque gem, tucked away in a quiet residential area to the south of the Nove Mesto in Prague. This luxury hotel feels like an undiscovered secret. This was originally an apartment block, where the famous Czech painter Ludek Marold lived for much of his brief life. He painted frescoes in his apartments and in corridors. Many of these, as well as both stairways, are now listed historical sites.

The facilities

A tophatted doorman will whisk you into a formal little lobby, which opens into a bar decked out in dark green and crimson at this luxury hotel. Brass fittings and little lamps gleam among the clusters of tables and chairs. Beyond the bar, a panelled library and club room with a proper fireplace make for a peaceful and clubby retreat.

The luxury hotel has a new draw: a garden terrace, where tables are gathered on a deck under smart white umbrellas. There is a view from here, down over a valley to another residential area, very green and pretty. You can have breakfast here or in Le Papillon, where smart French food is served in an attractive, primrose room.

Downstairs at Le Palais, there is an extensive health club with a gym, a series of treatment rooms, a Jacuzzi, steam rooms and saunas and a series of aromatherapy showers. Everything but the treatments are free of charge for the luxury hotel guests. The staff are a standout, cheerful and charming and very proud of Hotel Le Palais.

The rooms

There are 60 rooms and 12 suites, though it's hard to believe it as the luxury hotel is so well laid out. If you get a chance, skip the lifts and walk up the stairs to see Marold's charming ceiling frescoes of swifts in a blue spring sky which appear to fly from painting to painting. Rooms come in cheery springtime colours, with pretty floral bedspreads. The fresh décor is a welcome breath of air in a world filled with moody 'contemporary' hotels.

Room 222 has soaring ceilings and a lovely view over the terrace and valley. It feels quiet and secluded, very peaceful. Four Petite Suites nestle under the eaves on the fourth floor. Suites (Royal and Executive) are huge and would be called apartments in any other town. They have lots of individual character - The Belvedere Suite has a large living room and an extra bay window, the Marold Suite has an original fladro ceiling and a proper fireplace.

There are lots of little extras to keep you happy at this luxury hotel: plasma screen tvs with dvds to borrow free, electric blinds covering the huge, full-sized windows and heated floors in the bathrooms. The fat pillows on the beds come in your choice of feather or anti-allergenic and there are fresh flowers on tables. Welcome baskets aren't the usual grim fruit offerings but are elegant little trays of petits fours. Minibars are included in the room rates as is the overnight shoeshine service, as is the 'jogging map', which shows routes for joggers through a nearby park, with levels of difficulty.