Grand Hotel Cirta — Hotel in Constantine

This once magnificent palace hotel is now showing its age. The impressive exterior is looking stained and in need of maintenance and it is in the middle of a busy traffic junction. Parking is minimal. The entrance is beautifully tiled with an ancient open well lift giving slow access to all 4 floors. The small and cheerful bar is on the first floor - beer $2 and a supply of spirits. On the ground floor is a huge dining room belonged in the 19th century, but the food wasn't bad. The wine was $8 a bottle and of good quality. The breakfast was basically bread and cake. The rooms are gloomy with very high ceilings, cool enough, but the furniture looks original to the 1890s. The bath was adequate but the plumbing was noisy and slightly whiffy. ||The city itself is very interesting being at the top of a steep hill over a very deep gorge which bores though the town with water gouged tunnel. There are several impressive bridges including a pedestrian only which can be made to sway and a very spectacular suspension bridge high up in the old town. There is a cable car being built to connect the rail station (impressive) with the hospital at the top of the town and then on to the next peak - opening June 2008. The museum has some good mosaics and some paintings of fishing and bathing in the river in the 19th century - when it was unpolluted - don't even go near it now. A great day trip is Tiddis a Roman town set on a slope with...

To start with the PROs: uhm... the outside of the building has character and charm. On to the CONs: (granted, i had a less than stellar stay, so...) the rooms are, although somewhat comical to view, not pleasant to spend any length of time within; I killed a cockroach immediately upon walking in to my room, the flourescent blubs make a loud humming noise whenever on, the beds are AWFUL (no really, worst i have seen in a long LONG time), there were bread crumbs in the sheets, the pillows are like rocks, older than dirt, and generally unclean (I awoke with sinus congestion from whatever allergens/residual smoke had been infesting them for the last couple of decades). Bathroom is typical to area - no shower curtain, handheld shower, etc. Hot water...

Well, you cannot really grant an hotel that doesn't offer running water all day or double beds more than 2 points, can you? On the positive side, the Cirta is situated in central Constantine, it is a nice building, and the lobby is beautiful, too. Otherwise, it is a rather worn, state-run property which is in dire need of refurbishing. ||Note: Contrary to the Tripadvisor classification, this hotel is not situated in Algiers, but in Constantine, i.e. several hundred miles...