Some years back, while living in Costa Rica, I found the Hotel Grano de Oro a fine place to take guests for a nice dinner. During a recent business trip, I decided to stay for a night at this constantly improving establishment, whose only deficit is its rather seedy location on the east side of the country’s capital city. I hasten to add that security around the hotel itself is top-rate and so the neighborhood should not be considered a show-stopper.
An elegant new dining room and a set of new rooms has added to the Grano de Oro’s charm since I knew it as a dinner guest. The price was right and I was upgraded to a superb, beautifully appointed deluxe room.
This hotel and the Hotel Ave del Paraíso, across town, now become my two favorites for business travel to Costa Rica’s Central Plateau, especially when the alternatives are so often the familiar chains that are the rather colorless bread and butter of business travel in less exotic places.
Staff was friendly and attentive, the restaurant and room service fare were respectable, but the charm of the property itself is the real winner here.
Canter Bridge 
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