Accommodation: Greenlea, Pretoria

Greenlea – Irene

If I were to ever move back to Gauteng, I would move to Irene. What a lovely suburb. Generally when I fly up to Gauteng I stay with my Mom in Val de Grace, but this trip conflicted with other guests staying with her,  and knowing that I would have a lot of work pressures and would have been tempted to socialise at my Mom’s house, I booked myself into a guesthouse. After a quick Google search, Greenlea popped up – I liked that they are very “green”, their response time to my email and booking was super quick and they did not break the bank – R500 per night including breakfast.  After a long day of an early morning flight, and choc ‘n block day of meetings, I was eager to settle in for the night. The walls are quite thin, so the sound does tend to carry a bit – my next door neighbour fell asleep with the television on while watching soccer, and only turned it off at 05:20 (!)  – I raised this with the host the next morning, and it was all sorted out. 

I went for an early morning run on two mornings – jeepers, I had forgotten how icy cold Pretoria can get as we head to winter – the kind of cold that goes straight to the bones. What a lovely area to run in – I loved jogging around “The Oval”. Apparently Irene has quite a serious running club that meets every Tuesday evening – would love to try and fit that in next time.

The breakfast was pretty standard – different cereals to choose from, and a hot breakfast of bacon, eggs, and grilled baby tomatoes (I prefer baby tomatoes) –

The rooms are very spacious, firm pillows – I prefer softer pillows, but it was comfortable. The room does not come with a hairdryer, but one was easily and quickly organised.

Bathroom – there was not much space to put out cosmetics – just a funny wire shelf, the towel (only one for showering was provided and one hand towel) – seemed a bit thin, especially for a four star establishment, but it did what it had to.

I did comment in my feedback form as well – that it would be good to let guests know what specific greening initiatives they have in place – they use it as a marketing tool, but other than saying that we need to save electricity there is not much information on it – e.g. if there is a reason each guest only gets one towel – give the reasoning behind it.

All in all it was a pleasant experience, and I will stay there again.

Recommendable 8/10