You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.

Thanks go to another HotelChatter tipster, tombarnes20008, who dropped this

We're lovin' our rev-head friends this week: but today's deal is even better than getting a good view of a Formula One race. The Casanova Hotel in Barcelona has an F1 Racing Package that lets you do some of the driving. Yep, way better to risk your own life than just to watch someone else risk theirs (sorry, that was our mother talking).

The F1 Racing Package at Casanova gets you two nights' accommodation with breakfast and airport transfers, plus you get to race a Porsche Cayman around the Montmelo F1 track. Well, not exactly race but you do get to drive five fast laps, after getting a bit of training. Pay more and you can

Blow open the doors of this museum: Barcelona's Sónar Festival is around the corner! Held June 19-21 this year, the show encompasses concerts from acts as diverse as Matmos, Goldfrapp, M.I.A. and Justice, plus street fairs, film screenings and special events sponsored by the Barcelona Center of Contemporary Culture and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

There's a catch, though: During the fest, Sónar parties in the city by day and some kilometers distant by night in the Fira Barcelona. If you'd rather sightsee during the day, each section is ticketed separately (€30 [$46] for each day, €40-€48 by night), and transportation is included in the night tickets.

Oh, and as you can see in the photo, night events go on into the daylight in true Spanish style.

Related Stories:
· Sónar Festival [Official Site]
· Music Festivals coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: aqueousimages]

We're working out of Madrid today, staying at the Hotel El Coloso. We're a bit hard-pressed to say anything good or bad about the room, the service or the location, mostly because we're so floored by the WiFi Fee: 17 euros, or $26, for 24-hours worth of access.

That's only if you want to surf the Internet and instant message people ("OMFG srsly? $26 for IM??!!?" is how we imagine those real-time chats will go.) But if you want to branch out and go wild with e-mail attachments, downloading files and opening a VPN? Well, that will cost you 22 euro ($34) for a mere 24 hours worth of surf time. Plus, this is a ticking

Can someone tell us what is up with Spain's King Alfonso XIII? He's seemingly like the 19th century version of Andre Balazs, what with his demands that Spain have the most opulent hotels in Europe. That was the expressed intent of his namesake hotel, Hotel Alfonso XIII in Seville, which is still widely regarded as the luxury property in the city, despite the presence of a few smaller but no less luxurious boutique hotels.

Then there's the Hotel Ritz Madrid, which was borne out of Alfonso's desire to build a luxury hotel to rival the Ritz in Paris. Ah, if only online guest reviews existed in 1910.

No matter, the Hotel Ritz Madrid continues to

Barcelona's nightlife is notoriously hot and there is something to satisfy even the most professional partiers. But there are so many events happening simultaneously you can easily get overwhelmed and find yourself where many young travelers do: Running the Las Ramblas strip and eventually sharing pints with other foreigners at the the Old City's Travel Bar, a pub-ish backpacker den that should be avoided at all costs--unless you need to take advantage of its free WiFi.

Instead, we went in search of BCN's funkier side and sussed out two eclectic parties that kept us groovin' way too late (on a Wednesday, no less).

Beaches in Spain and the Mediterranean are bracing for an "assault" of jelllyfish that's expected to hit the region this summer. The Economist says the massive jellyfish bloom in Southern Europe is just the latest evidence of a steep rise in the number of the stinging creatures caused by overfishing. [via]

Valencia, the third largest city in Spain, has just opened the first phase of a $94 million, state-of-the-art zoo called Bioparc Valencia.

The zoo spans 25 acres and is home to 4,000 animals from 250 species including the old zoo favorites and stand-bys: antelope, zebras, gorillas and leopards.

Yet it's not your grandparents zoo where you walk around and point at animals in cages. The Bioparc reproduces the vegetation, terrain and sounds of the animals' ecosystem while hiding all the man-made stuff like barriers so you can feel a little less guilty about observing animals taken from their natural habitats.

If you're the type of traveler who only visits cities steeped in art history and who requires that the place you lay your head be it's own work of art, we've found your dream hotel package.

Madrid's art scene is so embedded in the city that even hotels are in on the action, particularly the Urban, a Design Hotel that not only is avant-garde in its design, but also houses it's own art collection, featuring original Oriental and Egyptian art work.

Through the end of the year, the hotel is running a promotion that includes two nights in a double room, a welcome bottle of Spanish red wine, daily buffet breakfast and newspaper, parking,

Good hotel WiFi isn't always found where you'd expect. In relaxed Spain, our expectations aren't too high, but at the Best Western Arosa in Madrid, they're very proud of offering free wireless internet access throughout the entire hotel.

Judging by some recent guest reviews, the Best Western Arosa has only one major drawback--it's quite noisy, and you can hear other guests, the street, and even some bathroom noises. But everything else is pretty much okay, with a good central location, good service and some recently-updated rooms, and the price is reasonable too, averaging under $200 a night. Curiously, they also have 16 Japanese-style rooms, which complement their well-regarded Japanese restaurant.

But beyond the normal hotel basics, quite