The only ....

The Ouro Minas Palace Hotel is on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte and is a 25-ish storey tower block across the road from a shopping centre. Every piece of hotel branding has (in Portuguese) "Ouro Minas, the only 5 star hotel in Belo Horizonte" emblazoned on it. I reckon that somebody opening another 5 star hotel in BH would probably bankrupt this one, as the rebranding bill alone would cost thousands.

To say the least, we were disappointed. This is, by quite a way, the most expensive hotel on our travels and it simply wasn't worth it. The rooms are dated, the bathroom was probably bleeding edge in 1979, but really showed its' age. The staff were excellent and the common areas were OK, if a little underlit. We had something to eat (as the toasty on the train didn't really keep the wolf from the door) which was perfectly nice.


View up the tower

Breakfast was not included (which is really unusual) and wasn't worth the 8 quid each that we were charged. On the train, we were debating whether to stay there three nights or not. We didn't.