We moved from the homey Cafe Cultura to a much more formal hotel in the Old Town called Mansion del Angel. The building was built at the turn of the 20th century as the home of a Ecuadorian tobacco tycoon.
The ground floor, where we stayed was originally designed for entertaining but has now been converted into rooms. Outside a pleasant garden rings the house and each room seemed to have an entrance into the garden.
The architect was Italian so there are many European influences, including a tile floor that looks like it is straight out of Spain.
I preferred Cafe Cultura, but this hotel was more conveniently located - right next to Alameda park and many bus and trolley lines.
One thing to note is that this hotel moved recently, so the guidebook we were using had the wrong address. The old address was almost impossible to find in a taxi because of the one-way streets and poorly marked buildings. We spent almost half an hour trying to get there, then ended up taking another taxi to get us to the actual hotel. We got lots of practice attempting to communicate in Spanish along the way and learned that asking the police for directions is rarely helpful.
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