DO NOT STAY AT MYRTO HOTEL IN ATHENS

Nightmare hotel reserved through Booking.com.

I bought through Booking.com a two- night stay at Myrto Hotel (note that sometimes it’s called Myrtos) God forbid there might be two of these hellish hotels.

Judging by the photo of the room on Booking.com, I was supposed to get a double size budget one, I thought things would be okay.

Never judge a hotel by its Booking.com cover photo - or at least in this case. The room was so tiny, my rather small suitcase was not able to fit in it. The bed was so small with no room to get out of it except if you wanted to bang your legs against the side wall.  

There was no space at its end, or sides or head. There was just a shelf  at its end with a small noisy fridge on it; no place to put your clothes; no place to move to get into the bed or out of it. And by the way no window as it shows in the photo. No side table except a tiny gnome size-one -- not big enough to put my small laptop on. The plug sparked and damaged my mouse.  There was no hot water except if I wanted to wait an hour before the boiler would work to make it hot. That’s what the kids downstairs running the hotel told me. Now these kids were nice and tried to help as much as possible, but how do you put a broken hotel back together?

These downstairs folks were young, very nice but there was no manager on site. Oh by the way, the elevator sounded like an airplane about to take off. It was so loud and groaning all night long I could not sleep at all.

Worse still, when I asked to change rooms there was no manager around at all or ever.

Breakfast on Booking.com looks yummy. Well, old cornflakes cold coffee and sticky white yogurt was there. I had placed my coffee cup on the wood table whose top instantly toppled, flipping sideways into a 90- degree angle, thereby spilling my stale coffee with the cup landing on the floor. This was becoming the Twilight Zone. I felt unsafe.

 I left the hotel at 1 am the second night and slept at the airport to catch my 7:30 morning flight back home

I now know why the Russian owners were never in sight. They were back home drinking vodka no doubt and laughing all the way to the bank while we poor helpless Myrtos Hotel victims were feeling like we had landed in a hovel of horrors. No one can walk in off the street and book a room at this hotel. You have to go through Booking.com.  get the money before they see it is their modus operandi.

Shame on Booking .com for not investigating this hotel and using false photos to get clients to book at this shabby hotel – one  that I would not even put Norman Bates in!