Originally Posted by
Aviatrix
Yes, you're right (and I had sort of forgotten), rooms with three or four beds do exist... at the bottom end of the market. I remember sharing a room with the whole family a couple of times as a child (once in Italy, once in Germany), though I recall that the rooms/hotels weren't all that nice.
I actually have very different memories of staying at pensiones.
There are all kinds, but I've always found it much easier in Spain (and so did my parents, even in the pre-internet days) to find places that were clean and hygienic than in many other parts of Europe -
particularly Britain.
The main downsides to sleeping in a Spanish Pension are
- shared bathrooms (and this isn't always the case, I've given a link to accommodation in Granada which offers private family rooms with ensuite facilities)
- bad sound proofing (usually from the streets, occasionally from other guests too). Take ear plugs.
- light leakage. Take eye masks.
- Basic facilities only and very spartan rooms. Take your own alarm clock with you as well as shampoo and toothpaste. The GOOD thing is that spartan rooms are much easier to clean, pretty much everywhere I've stayed at has the floor mopped clean on a daily basis.
Best way to check out a Pension/Hostal (and Hostal doesn't
really translate into the same word with the same connotations as Hostel in English) is to visit a communal bathroom when you arrive.
If it looks and
smells clean, then go ahead and check in. If it doesn't, go elsewhere.
I've stayed at my fair share of 4+*Hotels, but for economical and practical reasons, I'd rather have everyone stay together in a clean Pension than split up in more luxurious accommodation. I have wonderful memories of decaying, but regularly mopped, bourgeois residences with chandeliers, vintage lace curtains, exquisitely carved dark wooden fittings and fixtures, and high ceilinged, airy rooms in central Madrid. Thanks to these stays I got a peek at a life and lifestyle that is now practically extinct in urban Spain.