Bema Hotel

[Smith2]

They have apartments and a hotel. Anyone know it at all?

I'm quite looking forward to it. Uniformly good reviews, apart from those who find stairs a disturbing natural phenomenon, and when I googled idly for pictures, this came up: http://www.bemahotel.com/eng/blog/605012. I have a feeling they might be smoker-friendly. And breakfast is delivered to your room, which is a nice touch; I've never found the presence of other residents all that disturbing at breakfast, but given the choice, I think I'd rather fortify myself for the coming day on my own. Particularly if there's a balcony to smoke on, as an ideal breakfast starts with coffee and a pipe before leading up to the solid food.

[Grunt]

How much a night and who did you book through?

I like the idea of getting breakie delivered in the morning as i aint the best before my morning smoko

[Smith2]

A double for €30, through laterooms.com. Trivago couldn't find it.

[Smith2]

Bema is OK. Handy location for museums and de Pijp. Forty stairs to reception and another 20 to my room: no balcony, but I smoked out the window with no problem. Given that the smoke detector was at least 12 feet above me, it probably wouldn't have gone off for a real fire. And though I didn't actually ask, I got the impression that the staff were cool with it and in fact had were not strangers to indulging themselves.

It's not ideal: not ensuite, which wasn't that bad as the only other visible person on the floor didn't seem to wake up early, or at all. And only terrestrial television, which I don't suppose bothers many people, but euro TV is my guilty pleasure. Still, I'm a sucker for a bargain for a few days, when the money saved can be spent on rarer things.