Hotel Monopol

Not the best hotel in Puerto,but any self-respecting regular visitor to the town really should make at least one stop here,purely for the ambience of the place.I find it hard to be critical of the Monopol but that is the nature of writing a balanced review.I will list a few things,but don't let it put you off going here. Depending on what time of year you wish to go,the front of the hotel has balconies overlooking the church and are south facing.It's is probably worth booking one of these rooms in advance for the cooler months as the sea facing rooms get no sun at all and suffer from quite a cold feeling keen breeze blowing in off the sea.The northerly trade winds are very common.The majority of sea view rooms do not have balconies.My room was overlooking the church,and these rooms do not have air-conditioning.I don't know if the sea-facing rooms do or not.The downside to my room was the noise during the night,especially fri+sat from the local disco kids.I wasn't over impressed by the local council jetwashing the main thoroughfare at 2.30am either.There is no way you can sleep with the door open which could make it very hot during the warmer months.There is a fan on the ceiling,but whether that would make much difference is open to discussion. Food.A reasonable selection except for the main course at night which I found quite poor.What food there was though was fantastically cooked.Very much a case of quality than quantity. Staff.Very friendly and professional,and had a good command of foreign languages.It was also nice to see the boss was prepared to get his hands dirty and take pride in his job. Overall,well worthy of it's 3*rating,a very well run small family business that to me had more plus points than negatives,but I could understand some travellers possibly not enjoying their stay, room and time depending.Apart from the odd blip,I quite enjoyed it.