Belo Monte Hotel and Museum

The best hotel manager ever, thank you Lucia for looking after us so well. Nothing was too much trouble. It’s a peaceful old plantation house hotel on the most stunning island of Príncipe. Bedrooms are beautifully decorated and well equipped. Our room in the main building was fantastic, the views are spectacular. The meals were delicious, fresh local food, though with limited choice. We enjoyed the walks down to Banana Beach and to other viewpoints as well as the swimming pool. The Museum is one of the best and well worth a visit. Close to Europe in a tropical paradise, a perfect place to have some R&R.

Arriving at Roça Belo Monte is quite an experience! From the airport to the hotel, you'll be driving through rainforest on a bumpy road, which you wont be too annoyed by thanks to the stunning sights and sounds. Once on the premises, we were greeted by the manager (?) and a lovely fruity welcome drink. We received a quick tour of the bar & restaurant and were taken to our room. We were upgraded from a plantation room to one of the suites, which was a nice surprise and we were quite happy with our room - a spacious bathroom with two individual sinks, seperate shower and bathtub. What was missing and we kind of were expecting from a hotel in that price-range: A mini-fridge! The bottles of filtered water were restocked every day, so we had plenty of water, but to keep it refreshing (especially when going on a trip or to the beach), somewhere to keep it cool would have been nice. Room: +spacious and "comfy" room +quiet and private, but still with a feel of "out in nature" +clean and well taken care of -no mini-fridge -bathrobe was taken with other towels, but not restocked Of course, the main star of this accomodation is "Praia Banana" - and having seen other beaches on Principe as well as Sao Tome, this one really is "it"! Clear water, yellow-white sand contrasted with black volcanic rocks and no deck-chair-desert eyesore! The hotel provides shuttle-service to the beach, but we chose to walk the three times we went to spend time there. Maybe for the better, given what we experienced on the service-side during our stay (foreshadowing)... The on location museum was definitely worth a visit...or two (we had to split our visit, there is much to read!). Location: +calm, paradisic ambiance +most beautiful beach in walking distance +museum with interesting facts and information about the islands +different locations to enjoy the view The first dinner was held outside in the courtyard - beautiful ambience and good food! Sadly, this was the first and only time when that would be the case, coming to a first, major "bad point" The food (we had half-board) was good, not exceptional for this class of hotel, but ok. Same goes for breakfast, were in addition to the buffet (which sadly felt a bit neglected from time to time, you never knew if they ran out of stuff, or just didn't get around to refilling it) you could order from a range of things - omletts, eggs and so on. IF your order made it to the kitchen, after a more or less reasonable time, you got your omlett or scrambled eggs on a plate. It happened more than once, that they simply forgot about our order, or for some other reason, took 45 Minutes to make an omlett. Now, had the hotel been fully booked, that (in combination with the island's motto, "leve-leve") could have been understandable, but usually there weren't more than maybe 3-4 more tables to serve, with each 2 people - which should easily be manageable by a hotel that has space for up to 40 people. We were informed, that the owners birthda

The venue is spectacular with a truly breathtaking sea view from both the main terrace and dining area, especially during the sunsets. It is such that often, you simply prefer to sit and enjoy the view to leaving the hotel area. They also arranged a dinner with Sao Tomean live music at a view point halfway to the beach one of the nights. If attentive one can actually see a whole range of birds already from the broader hotel area. I managed to see both grey parrots and the two main types of kingfishers. The pool is on the smaller side but it is fully possible to swim in it and you will anyways prefer to go to the beach (the hotel arranges an included shuttle service to Praia Banana, including towels and snorkeling equipment, on demand and there are several other nice beaches to visit on walking distance, many of them amongst the best I have seen on the Western side of Africa). Unlike many places in the region, it is generally safe to swim at the beaches. The snorkeling trails are amongst the better I have experienced in the region where I saw beyond a dozen species of fish, starfishes, morays, sea urchins, rhodolites and even small squids and a turtle. The turtle night tour to Praia Grande, I would strongly reccomend and the hotel offer a large range of activities. The museum on the premises is well worth an early visit. If you are new to the region, you can see many tropical plants and butterflies in the immediate area (bananas, cocoa trees, pineapples, mango trees, sapsap trees, cotton trees etc). The staff are service minded and really keen to make you feel at home. I stayed in the Manor House Luxury Suite and would definitely recommend one of the rooms in the Manor House for the stunning view and practical location. I had a little balcony with sea view directly from the bed room and there was also a French balcony overlooking the courtyard from the living room. The only point of improvements is that while the food was by all means fully satisfactory, not fully a five star option as the rest of the stay. This is probably partially due to the remote location practically limiting options but they could for instance have more juice options for the breakfast and more variety for the dinner (as a vegetarian, they were very helpful and flexible in providing very good options so I was indeed very happy with the food). There are actually more options than they always put forward for the breakfast such as cerals with milk, bread and tea. As is to be expected and common in this part of the world, there are ants around the venue. I had initially planned to visit Bombom resort but booked Bela Monte as Bombom is undergoing a renovation. I did not regret this and would definitely book a stay at Bela Monte again if I return to Principe. Highly recommend - you wont regret your stay!