Hotel Stracta is a big hotel with c100 rooms. We have one of six 2 bed apartments. It is a bit tired, but clean and functional.
There is a small a la carte restaurant downstairs and an enormous breakfast/evening buffet area upstairs. The lovely check in lady would not take a booking for the restaurant or commit to a time it might be quieter, but it was clearly in an effort to avoid accidentally lying to us! She did whisper that the pizza van over the road was very good, so our first night we did that.
The facilities are excellent with resistance machines in the gym, hot tubs and saunas for hire (unless you have an apartment in which case you get a private, if gritty, hot tub) and a glass corridor to view the Northern lights from in the winter.
Our apartment has a double and a twin room, with a sofabed in the lounge/diner. The kitchen has the basics, with a fridge, sink, microwave and hob, although I am on holiday and don’t intend to use anything but the tap and the kettle! The bathroom is more functional than stylish and I am never a fan of bathrooms without windows, but it does the job.
We have our own parking space and a private yard with the hot tub and some seating.
On the second night we ate in the restaurant and the food was tasty with a European feel and Icelandic twists.
However, the apartment from the outside looks a little like a prison camp – but only because the buildings were used as worker accommodation at an aluminium mine elsewhere in Iceland, before being shipped to Hella and turned into a hotel!! The addition of a hot tub helps!
