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 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

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

Huge hotels in huge cities are the norm. Sometimes, though, in a city with a million inhabitants, several million tourists, and even more stray dogs and cats, you really need somewhere small and cosy to disappear to.

Madrid is one of those places. Hotels are generally either 400-room monstrosities for which you pay through the nose, or tiny 10th-floor bunk-bed dormitories with leaky showerheads, whirring fan heaters and noisy drunks outside.

We heard about the Hotel Abalu in Madrid from a groovy Madrileño friend and it sounds just blimmin' perfect.

So it's the morning after the night before and you're in Madrid looking for a post-New Year's Eve hotel.

Something classy, something to look at and talk about, something to take your mind off the huge stinking hangover you're suffering from. Try the 5-star Hotel Puerta America, possibly the most ostentatiously, self-consciously impractical yet at the same time fascinating design hotel in the world.

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Come New Year, the Spaniards have an excellent custom to celebrate this momentous (well okay, annual) occasion. They fill their mouths with grapes - one for each and every clang of the bell at midnight - then rush around to kiss each other Happy New Year and quirt grape juice over everyone's cheeks. And Spanish supermarkets haven't heard of seedless grapes....

Join in the New Year fun in Madrid - here's our roving Europe correspondent Monica Guy's top three choices for where to stay.

1. De Las Letras: De Las Letras is a real paradox of a hotel. Stunningly trendy, colour-contrasting interior décor intermingles with period statues, a 19th-century exterior and a

Our Fall Culture Travel Map can get you to the good museums.

And here we thought Goya just made delicious black beans and pastel colored sodas that taste like cartoons. Apparently Goya also makes masterworks of 19th century Neo-classicist portraiture, hung not in the aisles of your local bodega but in the newly renovated halls of Madrid's Prado Museum.

This Fall the Prado is pulling the classics out of storage to fill their new wing with little-seen examples of 19th Century Spanish art. Hidden from the public eye, these paintings and sculptures have been the subject of many years of research and restoration and will also be featured in an exhaustive catalog of the Prado's collection. Titled A Collection Rediscovered, this exhibition takes the viewer through the years that separate Francisco de Goya from Pablo Picasso.

The exhibition runs until April 24 with a concert on November 16 and a screening on the 17 that both explore themes of 19th Century Spanish art. Admission is relatively cheap (about $9) but bring whatever special ID (student, teacher, AARP?) you have lying around to drop the price through the Prado's liberal discount admissions policy.

Related Links:
· The 19th Century in the Prado [Official Site]
· Fall Culture Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Fall Culture Travel Map [Jaunted]

[Photo: Lanpernas 2.1]

You don't have to stay at home just because the leaves are changing. Follow along on our Fall Culture Map to discover what's happening this autumn.

While Americans fawn over events dedicated to cookie jars, butter sculptures and the art of sausage-making, a European festival needs some heft in order to distinguish itself in the culture glut of The Old World. Luckily Festival de Otoño (Autumn Festival) in Madrid has the stats to set it above the rest.

For five weeks every autumn, invited companies take the stage daily and nightly. This year's shows include 73 theatre, 21 dance, 13 music and 39 circus performances. The 28 international productions hail from world-renowned companies from a host of European countries, the United States, South America and Asia. To find that kind of diversity stateside, you'd have to ride "It's a Small World" at Disneyland.

La Comédie-Française, which claims the title of the western world's oldest theater company, just wrapped the first Spanish performance of Molière's Le Misanthrope. And while it's too late to catch the French comedy of manners, ¡Piratas, Piratas! might be more fun anyway: 60 acrobats from Mongolia, Russia, India, Malaysia and China flip and fly in a Cirque-like battle between good and bad pirates.

Now in its 24th year, the Autumn Festival started October 15 and lasts until November 18.

Related Stories:
· Festival de Otoño [Official Site]
· Fall Culture Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Fall Culture Travel Map [Jaunted]