Sunday, July 27, 2014

Hotel Fornos Mexico City

Hotel Fornos front entrance. Photo from hotel website

The Hotel Fornos is on Calle Revillagigedo, near Calle Márquez Sterling, a long block north of Arcos de Belén, in the non-historic part of Mexico City Centro. It's not very far from the Ciudadela and the Hotel Pal, where we had stayed several times. It's also close to the foodie mecca of Mercado San Juan and surroundings. Metro and MetroBus: Balderas.

From its website, it looks quite nice, with a touch of elegance, even, and the prices are very reasonable.

We stayed at the Hotel Fornos recently. The hotel seems very well maintained and has some aesthetic styling, particularly in the retro-Thirties lobby. ("Retro" may be the wrong word, as the lobby and main part of the hotel dates from the Thirties.)

Hotel Fornos lobby: scene for a '30s musical

Although we had phoned in a reservation for a King room, at $340 pesos; when we arrived, I noticed that a king jacuzzi room was available for $540 pesos. I went up to the third floor at the back of the hotel, looked it over and liked what I saw.

The view from the bedroom window was a scene of Industrial Chic.

I LIKED this view!
The room was ample, with the basic bathroom on one side of the foyer and a space set aside for a capacious jacuzzi tub on the other. There was a simple but more than adequate closet, with, of all things, many wire hangers. There were two pairs of plastic flip flops sealed in plastic bags. But those were not very useful.
There was a long dressing table with mirror, but no drawers! The lack of drawers was not a problem for a short stay, but would be inconvenient for longer stays.

The jacuzzi was warm and soothing. The bathroom proper was of the old style 3 in one type. Be sure to put the toilet roll aside before you shower.

A wooden sliding door separated the entrance/bathing area from the bedroom. The bedroom looked out over the buildings next door. Ventilation was adequate, but there was no fan.

The whole place was sparkling clean.

We would have had a restful night were it not for some noisy other guests, who carried on loud conversations into the early morning hours. No blame to the hotel.

We had requested a wake up call, but it never came. Luckily, I awakened naturally, in plenty of time to pack and get the taxi* to the airport. It was before dawn, and I noted that the street was well lighted in the vicinity of the hotel.

*Taximex provided swift, efficient service and the fare to the airport was just over $100 pesos.

I conclude that the Hotel Fornos is an agreeable place to stay, but mostly useful to me if I were wanting to do a lot of shopping at the Mercado San Juan area, only a few blocks away. For most of our visits to Mexico City, we'll stay at the Hotel Embassy. The neighborhood there is of greater interest to me. (Mainly a more attractive environment, and many more restaurants close by.)

Hotel Fornos
Calle Revillagigedo 92
Colonia Centro,
México, D.F.
Tel: (55) 55104732
Email: reservaciones@hotelfornos.com.mx



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