Forte de São Francisco Hotel Chaves

Top notch, spectacular, tasteful restoration of a religious monastery. Beautiful decorations and artifacts. Unique and comfortable rooms. Superb swimming pool and views down over the town. Excellent breakfast. Amazing environment.

Fabulous hotel, but the pipe linking the shower head to the mixer was cheap plastic. This meant that if you raised the shower head, the pipe folded/kinked and cut off the water flow. You could NOT stand up in the shower. Everything else about the place was superb

The hotel is simply stunning, this is our 3rd time here, great area to park motorcycles (under the shady trees) Brilliant pool area Outstanding food in the evening and breakfast - ate here for 3 nights

The fact that the bar is not open at the pool, yet the pool is packed - to be fair they eventually agreed to open it on day 2 for a few hours in the afternoon The previous visits the bar was open and served snacks The staff are generally not friendly, with the exception of one or 2 - the reception staffs must have gone to special training to be so unhelpful and unfriendly - lets the hotel down

I had thought that I was reserving a room in a hotel near a historic fort, but the hotel IS IN the historic fort itself, with ramparts, cannon, etc., that is listed as a national monument. It was amazing! The breakfast and dinner at the restaurant were both excellent, and the hotel is located near the town center, and is very accessible.

The beds were a bit hard, but that was the only downside to a great stay.

This is a well executed and expensive conversion of an amazing medieval castle in the centre of the lively town of Chaves. Very high quality rooms and facilities including plenty of parking. Very extensive breakfast in a superb new dining room. Highly recommended.

The room we were allocated was impressive but it had an appalling view over a huge flat roof (the new dining room). The receptionist was very cooperative in changing our room, so we had no complaints. Some conversion work is ongoing but this was not intrusive.

Unfortunately this was only a one night stopover, could have stayed longer and will definitely go back, set in the old fort of Chaves this Hotel is like staying in a museum, antiques adorn the place, fantastic, spotlessly clean with plenty of space, ample parking in the grounds of the fort, even though it was cobbled it was fine moving the motorcycle around , lovely grounds overlooking the town with a great pool area, very short walk into the picturesque town, which, as a very helpful waiter at one of the restaurants pointed out, Chaves is the start of Portugals 'Route 66' which heads south on the N2 for over 700 KM to Faro on the south coast. Something we will be doing next year. A good reason to use this wonderful hotel once more.

Only staying one night !

Location is excellent, and breakfast was good too. Good value for money, as well.

I didn't like the mindless and quite loud piped music - why must this banal music be inflicted on guests everywhere now? If I want to hear music, why can't I choose it myself, rather than being forced to listen to idiotic computer pop? The room, in the attic, was perfectly comfortable, but super modern and characterless. I would have preferred an older room, as it's a seventeenth century fort. A pity that when they renovate these old places, they get rid of all the character!

The whole ambience of the hotel and grounds, were calming and soothing. A very special place that nourished your soul. Not enough time for a swim but the pool looked really inviting. Will definitely stay again when travelling.

My husband has an aversion to noisy extractor fans and you could hear one in our room if the window was open, I wear ear plugs so not a problem to me. Another slight quirk was having cereal in a large cup.

Nice hotel close to city centre with first class buffet breakfast.

May have been unusually busy for end of May but hotel seemed to be understaffed which I’ve never experienced here on numerous previous visits. Left standing at food counter waiting for staff member to be summoned to serve me coffee despite another staff member being sat twenty feet away behind reception reading a newspaper doing nothing but seemingly unable/unwilling to walk a few feet to press a coffee dispenser button.

Breakfast was great, staff were friendly. Very good English speaking staff and happy to help if needed.

Dinner was slow, and got orders wrong. The billing system is inefficient and over billed for items not ordered. No cider on draft, plus low stock with all alcohols. Bar staff Prioritise serving portuguese people before others.

The overall set up of the hotel was very nice, as it is located in an ancient building. The staff was very friendly and helpful. The breakfast had multiple options and was very nice (very tasty Pastéis de Chaves). And the facilities were very comfortable.

The mirror of the bathroom was not aligned with the sink (it was on the side, and in front of the sink there was a window), therefore, it felt strange to use the sink and not having a mirror in front of you. We do not want to say this was something bad but it just felt strange. However, we do understand that this is likely due to the architecture of the building. The shower head was not splashing evenly but it seemed rather clogged in certain holes of the shower head.