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Hotel Review: Novotel Canberra

May 5, 2017 / ACT, Australia, Travel / 1 Comment

We often stay at Novotel hotels when we travel because they are always to the high standard we expect from hotels in this brand’s family. The Novotel Canberra is no exception.

With its excellent location right in the centre of Canberra, the hotel is a fantastic place to stay when visiting Australia’s capital city. A short walk away you will find restaurants, shops, a pharmacy, convenience stores, taxis and buses. It’s an excellent place to base yourself for a Canberra visit.

The Novotel Canberra is a 4 ½ star hotel with 286 rooms. It’s located 0.2km from the city centre, entertainment and retail precincts and 8km from the airport. 24 hour room service is available, with healthy meal options, plus the hotel offers a complimentary in-room yoga channel with yoga mats available, a newly renovated indoor swimming pool as well as gymnasium, spa and sauna.

Reception is manned 24 hours a day, which is great for late and early check ins/outs. There is a small play area in reception for kids to play while adults are handling the paperwork.

Our room was light and spacious, with two queen beds, tea and coffee making facilities, a bar fridge and a great Angry Birds welcome gift for kids.

Wifi is offered for free to members (it’s free to sign up).

We always drive to Canberra and were pleased to see that we could park underground at the Novotel Canberra at a cost of $20/night. A bit pricey for parking, but the hotel locations is such that you would otherwise struggle to find anywhere near the hotel to park.

As always, we highly enjoyed our stay at the Novotel Canberra.

Novotel Canberra
65 Northbourne Ave, Canberra
Book your stay at the Novotel Canberra

I received a media rate for our stay. All opinions are my own. Affiliate links are used on this page. This means if you use a link to purchase or book something, I will receive a small commission at zero extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Adventure, Baby!

East Hotel Canberra + Agostinis Restaurant

April 19, 2017 / ACT, Australia, Travel / 1 Comment

The very instagrammable East Hotel is our fave place to stay in Canberra. It’s a vibrant, contemporary, very artsy hotel, in the perfect location for a stay in our nation’s capital.

Located only 2.3 km from Parliament House and 2.9 km from the National Gallery of Australia, the East Hotel is what I would class as walking distance to all the major attractions we like to hit up in Canberra. When we travel with the little one we taker her scooter so the distances are still manageable for her, and a good amount of exercise for us.

The hotel is fantastically designed to appeal to a wide range of people – from young hip couples thanks to its visual appeal, to families wanting more space and amenities. The free lollies and fruit at reception doesn’t hurt its popularity either – it’s hard to tell who liked the lollies more, the kids or the adults!

A big draw of the East Hotel, beyond the contemporary aesthetic, are the bright rooms that feature either kitchens or kitchenettes, balconies, free limited Wi-Fi and Nespresso machines. There are one and two-bedroom apartments that have full kitchens, and fantastic rooms for kids with bunk beds, bean bags and Xbox 360 video game consoles.

We had a one-bedroom apartment with a king bed and fold out bed in the living room, with a full kitchen. It was a huge room for the three of us, compared to the amount of space we usually have in a hotel.

The full kitchen is amazing and means we can buy plenty of food and make our own stuff, cutting down massively on the costs of eating out – as well as making sure we always have something on hand for the fussy five-year-old to eat.

While the popular “Kid Cubby” rooms, that feature the bunk beds, Xbox 360 and other fun stuff were all booked out for our stay, we still really enjoyed the extra toys, games and books the staff thoughtfully put in our room for us.

We stayed over Easter weekend and the staff very thoughtfully held a free Easter egg hunt for the guests.

If biking is your thing, the East Hotel offers free bike rental at reception, including kids bikes.

Parking is available under the hotel for $10 a night. Check the website for special offers, however, as I happened to find a voucher just as I was checking in that gave me free parking plus two free drinks from Joe’s Bar in the lobby.

An added draw for the hotel is the brand new restaurant that lives on the base level of the hotel, Agostinis. This gorgeous Italian restaurant has beautiful decor, a welcoming vibe and, most importantly, delicious food.

Guests of the East Hotel can order room service from Agostinis by dialling hotel dining on the room phones. Our meal arrive quickly and was honestly the best room service we’d probably ever had.

We also chose to dine in the restaurant the following night because the room service was so good, and had a wonderful evening in this very family-friendly, chic restaurant. The staff were friendly and attentive, the food exceptional.

From the menu we selected the Insalata Caprese Con Burrata (heirloom tomatoes, Burrata cheese, basil & Agostinis’ olive oil, $15), the Spaghetti Al Pomodoro E Basilico (fresh house-made pasta with tomato, garlic, basil, $18) and the Capricciosa (prosciutto cotto, mushrooms, artichokes, olives & Fior di Latte mozzarella, $24). For the little one, she had one of the kids pizza and pasta meals $15 each (including a drink and gelato for dessert).

I would highly recommend dining at Agostinis regardless of where you are staying in Canberra!

East Hotel
69 Canberra Ave, Kingston ACT
Book your stay at the East Hotel

We received a media rate when staying at the East Hotel. We have previously stayed paying the full rate. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links, which means I will receive a small commission if you book using my links. It will not cost you any extra. Thanks for supporting Adventure, baby!

24 Hours Kid-Free In Canberra

May 27, 2015 / ACT, Australia, NSW, Travel / 5 Comments

Canberra is often overlooked as a quick weekend away from Sydney and surrounds. Once known as the place you visit on school excursions, Canberra has come along way and is now alive with innovative art exhibitions, hip restaurants and spectacular scenery.

I usually make trips like this as a family, but on this occasion I was desperate to see an exhibit that I knew my preschooler wouldn’t be keen on, so my parents kindly watched her for a night so the husband and I could skip on down to Canberra and check out the James Turrell exhibit at the National Gallery of Australia. We only had 24 hours to spend in the city, we had a tight itinerary that allowed us good food, nature and culture.

Lunch: Silo Bakery
This little bakery is so popular that bookings for lunch are advised, and if you’re dropping by for one of their famous pastries, get there early or you’ll go home empty handed. The bakery is on the pricey side (our meal of two dishes, two tarts, two coffees and a tea came to $66), but the food is absolutely delicious – making it worth the money especially if you’re not in Canberra very often.

We ordered: Jamon, squid ink salami & tomato bread ($24), Tarte Flamiche ($20 Flemish-style leek & cheese pastry on an endive salad), Rhubarb pastry, Banana Carmel Tart.
Silo Bakery: 36 Giles St Kingston ACT 2604. Hours: 7am to 4pm Tuesday to Saturday

Afternoon stroll: Walk around Lake Burley Griffin
We stayed in a central hotel, just a short walk from Lake Burley Griffin. Our hotel also had free bikes for customers to use during their stay, which would have been perfect to ride around the lake. We walked instead, and enjoyed the late autumn colours, the swans and generally peaceful stroll around the lake as we walked towards the National Art Gallery.

Cultural visit: National Gallery of Australia
I love art, so it never seems like an odd thing to do to drive down to Canberra just to see an exhibition. The National Gallery of Australia gets a lot of spectacular exhibitions that don’t come up to Sydney, such as the current one, James Turrell. The National Gallery also has a great permanent collection worth seeing, with an impressive Sidney Nolan collection, as well as modern art works by masters like Degas, Monet and Dali. The permanent collection is free to see, as is the sculpture garden outside. The Turrell exhibition we saw, his retrospective, was nothing short of spectacular.
National Gallery of Australia: Parkes Pl, Canberra ACT 2600

Dinner: eightysix
This little restaurant is so hot right now that by 6:30pm it was jam packed (highly suggest you make a reservation). The food is upscale modern Australia, with innovative dishes like the Daffinois & Dukkah Wafer, $6, Steak Tartare with Wasabi, $24, Duck Bun (with hoisin & hot sauce $8), Pumpkin Tortellini with Rocket, $30. Delicious food, excellent service. Not cheap, but high quality and worth the splurge. The cocktails were magnificent – my $30 Honey Blossom i had was so potent I had a slight buzz the following morning. We stayed for dessert and had the Margarita, $14, (which was a sour sorbet and meringue piles on top), and the Banoffie Pie, $17, which was the perfect mix of sweet pie crust, caramel and whipped cream, interestingly topped with pretzels.
eightysix: 11 Elouera St, Braddon ACT 2612. Hours: Mon 6pm-10pm, Tue-Sat 12pm-2:30pm, 6pm-11pm, Sun 9am-3pm, 6pm-11pm

Accommodation: East Hotel
We stayed at the East Hotel in Kingston. It was very well located, modern and clean. The hotel had fun touches like complimentary bikes, refreshing lemon water and jelly snakes in the lobby, and a variety of family-friendly amenities like Xboxes and boardgames – it was unfortunate we were travelling minus the child and didn’t need to use them. Each room at a small but functional kitchen area, so you could stay here longer and buy groceries to cut down the cost of eating out.
East Hotel: 69 Canberra Avenue, Kingston ACT Australia 2604

Breakfast: East hotel
We were going to head to a different cafe for breakfast, but were short on time so had breakfast at hour hotel. It turned out to be a good deal. As guests of the hotel it cost us $15pp to have a hot breakfast including made-to-order eggs, baked beans, hash browns, bacon, sourdough, coffee, tea, pancakes. The food was fresh and delicious, and it was so easy that we were happy with our decision.

Canberra – Day 2

January 25, 2009 / ACT, Sydney Food, Travel / 0 comment

It’s off to the National Art Gallery to see the Degas exhibition. It was definitely worth the long drive down! We joined a tour group and learned a great many things about my favourite artist.

Following the art gallery we took a walk around the Old Parliament House Gardens and had a look at the hundreds of roses that are planted there.

A visit to our nation’s capital isn’t complete without a trip to Parliament House. We had a quick look around, walked over the top, and stopped for lunch. We hadn’t intended to stop there at all, but I’m glad we did as I found it really interesting.

Last stop in the Berra before our journey home was at Koko Black, a chocolate cafe recommended to me by a work friend. It’s a Melbourne company and has yet to open in Sydney. I was a bit of a glutton and ordered way too much, but I wanted to try a few things.

I wasn’t disappointed that’s for sure! The ice chocolate I had was amazing and filled with two different types of ice-cream. Alec’s ice coffee was also great, and the ice-cream martini we shared was absolutely fantastic.

Piggy!

I can’t remember the full name of this, but it was a delicious caramel ice-cream made on the premises with coconut and chocolate and possibly something else.

Gone in 60 seconds!

Lots more chocolate!

After Koko Black we slowly drove back to Sydney … after an immensely enjoyable Canberra mini-break.

Canberra – Day 1

January 24, 2009 / ACT, Travel / 0 comment

Alec and I drove down to Canberra to check out the Degas exhibition for the Australia Day long weekend.

It’s a loooong drive from Chatswood, so we drove to Warwick Farm Friday after work, and then set out this morning so we didn’t have to rush.

We arrived in the Berra around lunch time and went straight to the Australian War Memorial.

I found the war memorial very interesting – there was so much to see however, we ran out of time. A highlight was watching the lone Scot piper playing a lament at the tomb of the unknown soldier – very moving.

After a solemn afternoon we had dinner and raced to Telstra tower to catch the sunset. We were a little late and only caught the last light of the day, but it was still a great view.