Hotel Acacias De Vitacura, Santiago

This is a lovely rambling little hotel, and a great alternative to the big-box highrise hotels in downtown Santiago. It's located out a bit past the end of the main metro line in a quiet, very well-maintained residential neighbourhood.

The grounds are fabulous - beautifully landscaped with shade trees, fruit trees and bushes. Our room had a yellow plum tree right against the balcony. We went in April, so it was full of fruit - at least it was when we arrived... The hotel is decorated with old carriages isn a lovely state of restoration, and in front of the hotel they have installed an old steam locomotive and coal tender that used to belong to the Chilean railway.

The staff is attentive and friendly, and some spoke enough English to offset our rusty Spanish. The rooms are very pleasant but not ostentatious. The maid service was unfailing and impeccable. The only shortcoming was the quality of the food - we ate one dinner there, and didn't bother again. The breakfasts are a fairly basic cold buffet, but enough to get you started on your day.

Getting to downtown is straightfroward. The hotel is one block of the main street of Vitacura, so that one-block walk gets you to taxis. A taxi to the metro station of Escuela Militar (take the official cabs that are yellow over black, not the all-black collectivos) costs 2000 pesos (about $3.25 USD), and take the metro downtown or anywhere else in Santiago.

We were totally delighted with this hotel, and would recommend it in a New York minute :-)