Pension Pertschy by Jamie Dunford Wood

The Pension Pertschy grows on you. At first glance it has a lot to put you off – if the street entrance and scruffy single lift have not done it, the décor may appall you, with grandma’s textured wallpaper, dowdy furnishings and a salmon pink – patterned – carpet. There’s someone dead in the armoire and a Chinese work experience student mans reception. But the Pertschy has an oddly oriental feel about it – many of the rooms are grouped around a marvelous open inner courtyard, and are entered by covered walkways around the inside. It’s only a pity that the courtyard itself is in fact a car park, with offices on the ground floor – as an open garden or eating area it would be magnificent, but then the Pertschy would have to take over the whole building. Only a Conran could do it, and then where would we be?

Probably avoid, then, the inner courtyard rooms, as the noise and fumes of the cars below might aggravate. 16 of the 50 rooms face the BraunerStrasse, a pedestrianised gasse which echoes only to the clip-clop of horses pulling Japanese tourists and the occasional pedestrian. This feels like the real Vienna, or rather the fantasy Vienna of the old days, and it is a feeling worth putting up with the wallpaper for, whatever Oscar Wilde would think. 315, 317, 310, 140 and 236 are the biggest, and of a good size, with little seating areas, but tiny bathrooms. As for the rest, the common parts have been ‘done up’, but still retain a friendly community feel – you have the feeling of being on board a rather eccentric cruise ship. The large and friendly dining room looks like the sort of place you might exchange useful traveler gossip. Not as good as the Nossek, but a useful alternative for the broad-minded.