The ICON Hotel and Lounge

A slick yet friendly boutique hotel with generous rooms, just off Wenceslas Square - Prague's main promenade

In Prague, what you see is not always what you get. Look in the window of a bar for example, and you might see a few old men sitting at simple wooden tables smoking cigarettes. What you wouldn't know is that downstairs is a veritable lair of stone domed rooms, filled with lively conversations, outstanding food and hip music.

The ICON Hotel and Lounge embraces this tradition. Its heavy wooden front doors look fairly battered - more like the entrance to an aging apartment house than a high-end hotel. But push through them, and you are greeted with colourful yet subdued mood lighting, highly polished floors and a groovy soundtrack. A remnant of the original building is found in a 'secret' inner room with painted Czech patron saints on the wall, for which the hotel is named - but elsewhere all is shiny new. The front desk staff have every right to be snooty but they're just the opposite - warm, helpful and genuinely interested in who you are and where you came from. And despite a plum location on a quiet street just minutes to the madness of Wenceslas Square and Old Town, you get that most rare commodity in European hotels - spacious and immaculate rooms. The ICON Hotel and Lounge offers a chance to party till Prague's wee hours, then stagger home and sleep it off in style.

Highs

• Charming spa offering a range of Balinese and Thai massages from women that hail from Southeast Asia
• Cool loft-like club space with guest DJs, a buzzy bar and a restaurant that serves creative dinners and good breakfasts
• Located on what feels like a hidden street, with the restaurants, clubs and rich array of department stores of Wenceslas Square just 3 minutes' walk away
• Multi-lingual staff who are as generous with their smiles as with information about the area
• Biometric (opened by fingerprint) safes, iPod docks, Skype phones and dreamy handmade Hästens beds in each of the 31 rooms

Lows

• The rooms feel a little under-designed - almost as if the decorating was stopped halfway through. None have interesting views and sound can carry
• Standard rooms have only 1 chair and 1 coat hook, making them feel more like business hotel rooms than a couples' escape
• In such a spacious hotel, the spa feels a little claustrophobic, but this thought is quickly massaged away by the expert staff
• No pool, gym or outside space
• The only English-language TV station we could get on the flat screen (among the very few channels offered) was CNN