ChEMBL

It's been snowing, and I'm just here on an overnight stopover - but it is a really nice place, looks very pretty, clean efficient and friendly. Haven't been here for about 20 years, but it hasn't changed. As the picture above shows, it has a Bauhaus inspired design, and there's quite a lot of period posters and explanation of the style around the building, but the rooms (at least the one I had) have a more conventional decor. And it is close to the EMBL Heidelberg campus. As expected due to its location, there are special links to EMBL itself.

The hotel website (German and English) makes clear the special benefits. This is the best 'visiting scientist hotel' so far with a stonking 66% score. And a visit in September/October with little wrinkles sorted out on internet access, it could be even higher.

Getting There - 4/10 Why, Oh Why, is there not a Heidelberg airport ? - about 45 minutes to get here from Karlsruhe. So make sure you have some cash for a cab (60Euro will be sufficient).

Cost - 8/10 ca. Euro70 a night including breakfast, with a discount for EMBL staff. Now if only the pound wasn't so weak against the Euro.

Internet - 8/10 Free! (to EMBL staff anyway) fast and didn't find any port oddities. This would have been a 10 but the first password I had had expired, and there were a few problems with my DNS that meant I couldn't get to certain domains - no real pattern to these, but the essentials all worked.

Conference facilities - 7/10 - Looks very good indeed.

Mushroom factor - 6/10 Snow on the ground, but looks really promising. All I need to do is to get a meeting here in September.