Thistle Hotel, Glasgow

The Thistle Hotel is the consummate city centre hotel right in the heart of Glasgow’s shopping centre in easy reach of bus and rail connections. Modern style, comfort and a breakfast that it’s worth flying to Scotland just to enjoy.

Cambridge Street, Glasgow

The Thistle Hotel is one of those city centre hotels that does exactly what you need it to do. It offers modern, comfortable rooms with a good shower, a brilliant breakfast and great views in a position that’s central for shops, restaurants, theatres and transport hubs. What’s more, it does it at a budget friendly price.

Rooms:
The rooms have a contemporary, minimalist style in charcoal, grey and chocolate with burgundy furnishings, photographic prints on the walls and large picture windows with views over the city – or at least, our room on the eighth floor did, lower floors may well get the multi storey car park opposite.
The beds are double or twin and are extremely comfortable. The en suite is a little low on elbow room but the shower is powerful and the water is scalding hot. Toiletries are a little on the scrimping side. There’s a large, flat screen TV, free high speed WiFi and tea and coffee making facilities. With double glazing and an entrance hallway, we didn’t hear any noise and slept soundly all night. Wheelchair accessible rooms are available.

Facilities:
Only there for one night, we didn’t get to the Otium Health and Leisure Club. The hotel’s Cabin Bar is a friendly and relaxed place to while away a few rounds, is more expensive than the bar down the road as you’d expect but isn’t exhorbitant and was still lively when we left it at around the midnight hour. For us, breakfast at the Thistle was one of its real plus points. Served in the contemporary Annlann Restaurant, we could easily have eaten ourselves into a stupor. Fresh fruit, cereals, yoghurts, porridge, Scottish rolls (which incidentally are the best rolls in the world), croissants and pastries were all a mere side order to the freshly cooked breakfast of bacon, sausage, Lorne sausage, potato cakes, hash browns, eggs every way you can imagine, beans, mushrooms, haggis and black pudding. I may have missed another dozen items or so in that list.

Prices from £70 per night for room and breakfast. Check out offers here.

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+