This week I had to be in London for the second time in one month and my experience was to some extent even worse than the previous one.
Apparently the city was packed and room availability scarce so I had to deal with a hotel that I would normally not pick up on the basis of the reviews: Thistle City Barbican.

The first night I was in the Thistle Kensington Park: my room was facing the HVAC cooling section that produced a continuous hum during the night and the bed was fairly uncomfortable: for 226£ expectations were higher.

The very bad experience was the second night with the City Barbican: the room needs a major renovation for at least 10 years now.
In the bathroom a tile was missing from the floor and the chrome of the tap (two separate ones) was just a distant past.

Wood panels and water don’t play nicely together and it is was clearly a bad decision to heavily use them in a bathroom.

Tapestry on the wall was bulging, the desk finish was of low quality wood-like hard plastic and some large patches were missing altogether.

No need to say that the carpet has made his time and the rest of the furniture was not in great shape either.

I was lucky to be very tired and able to fall asleep without thinking of the cleaning.

226£ for a room that would be just ok for a free emergency shelter is absolutely a shame even if the personnel was very kind: in the end it’s 20 minutes dealing with them and 8 hours dealing with the room.

Stay away from the Barbican.