Hotel Lowen

The staff was excellent. Very helpful in providing directions. Provided us with a room fan when we requested one in the heat wave. Good location near most of things you need when visiting Appenzell.

Everything was great except Saturday night you could hear the bar from our room and it didn’t quite down until 3:30am. Other than that it was great and the other nights were very quiet.

Such a cute hotel. Feels like a home and the rooms were spacious and clean. There is no air contitioning (like a lot of Europe) but there were two windows that provided a small breeze that made it ok for sleeping. Susan was the receptionist that checked me in and she was so kind. She even purchased a water that she just bought so it was cold! The hotel is close to restaurants and to the train station. The breakfast was PERFECT. There were enough options for anyone (i.e. hard boiled eggs, bread, yogurt, fruit, cereal, meats and cheese, coffee, juice, water, and more that I am forgetting).

Pros: -Good location -Updated room and furniture Cons: -only two parking spaces for the entire hotel, had to park about 5 blocks away -No AC (temp was 93F the night we stayed) -several loud groups of people outside every 20-30 mins until 4am, did not get any sleep

Highly recommend! We loved this hotel. Charming & excellent on all levels. Superb linens, beautiful renovated bath. Wonderful breakfast too with high end coffee machine. Staff was great! :)

Hotel Lowen is a cute Swiss hotel in the middle of a wonderful city, Appenzell. The good first: The rooms were typical of European hotels, small but tastefully decorated and very clean. The breakfast buffet is wonderful with a variety of selections such as meats, cheeses, cereals, breads, coffee, juices, etc... The breads were especially delicious and fresh each day. The not so good: Parking is a challenge when staying at Hotel Lowen. You are allowed to park at the front and drop your luggage but then you have to navigate the streets to find a parking lot. On some streets you are not allowed to drive on and not marked well (but evident by the pedestrians walking around). We had to pay $9 per day to park in a lot near Appenzeller Brauerei. We were there in June for two nights and the temperatures at night were in the 50's. So you'd think the room would be nice and cool with the windows open. But there was no air flow, no fan so it was very warm and stuffy. We had a room facing the back of the hotel and the other couple we were staying with had a room facing the street. As other reviewers have mentioned, the noise from the local bar is terrible. We heard it from both our rooms and it went on until well after 2am. So keeping the windows closed made the room unbearable and keeping them open kept us awake with the noise. The hotel has a patio in the back which we used one night. It was a cozy little area to sit and have a glass of wine in the cool evenings. The first night that we went out there the door was locked to get back in. There is a key pad outside that should allow a guest to swipe their key to get back in but it didn't work. There was no other way to get out of the courtyard so we knocked on the door until the front staff let us in. She was not happy at all about having to let us in, she propped the door and told us we needed to close the door when we were done. The next night the door was locked and there was no staff around to let us use the patio. Why would you have that area but not let anyone use it. The bar area with seating out front closes at 7:30pm so there is no where to sit outside to have a drink. These two negatives would unfortunately cause us to choose a different hotel to stay at next time we visit Appenzell.

I was there in April. It is a great place to stay right in the middle of Appenzell Old Town. My room was lovely with a wonderful roof window that opened and looked out over rooftops and I could see the Sutter Schloss. The price was reasonable, very clean, and the breakfast spread was excellent. I wish the desk staff, who were rarely there to answer questions, knew more about the town and places to eat. I ended up eating at their other hotel, Hotel Santis. The staff didn't know there was an Alpen horn group that performed/practiced outside their door, or about the yodeling group of women who just appeared in street clothing, sang for about half an hour or so. It seemed like they did this every Saturday for practice, and of course it was lovely to hear the different style of the Appenzell yodeling which is more harmony and soothing melodic sound, both were lovely!

The parking was the difficult part every lot I went into you needed a disk parking. Which I did not have. I needed a overnight parking lot and after 234 attempts I finally found a parking lot that took coins… But a local girl help me put the coins in as it would not except my credit card…

This was such a convenient location from the train station. Loved the little details: Appenzell specialty treat on the pillows, rubber ducky in the showet and bottled water upon checkout. They even let us put our sandwiches in the frig overnight. The staff was very friendly and polite. Breakfast was good and plentiful!