Prague is a city that, for various world-historical reasons, sat out the heyday of Fifties and Sixties modernism. So when a hotel like the Vintage Design Hotel Sax ventures down the retro-modernist road, it does so with a special vigor. A couple of present-day Czech architects have transformed this centuries-old building into a boutique-hotel fantasy, almost a movie-set world full of vivid colors, bold prints, and classics of mid-century furniture design.
The riotous public spaces put the minimalist design hotels to shame, and the rooms are toned down just enough to be livable. They’re not quite luxury-hotel material, but they are comfortable, and the attic rooms, up under the eaves, trade a little bit of headroom for views that peek out over Prague’s picturesque rooftops.
As for the location, the Sax is exactly where you want to be: in the heart of the old town, the Malá Strana, the historic district of winding cobblestone streets below the Prague Castle. If there’s one thing the Sax lacks, it’s a restaurant (though there’s no shortage in the neighborhood) — but with a fitness center, a massage corner, and even a five-o’clock tea service in the lobby bar, it’s got just about everything else you could ask for.
author watson@mouselink.net, source www.tablethotels.com