Hotel Tabard Inn

Description:

• If you favor the offbeat and personal over cookie-cutter chains, try the Tabard. Named for the hostelry in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Tabard is three Victorian town houses that were joined in 1914 and have operated as an inn ever since.

  The heart of the ground floor is the dark-paneled lounge, with worn furniture, fireplace, the original beamed ceiling, and bookcases. Washingtonians come here for drinks, jazz on Sundays, or to linger before or after dining in the charming Tabard Inn restaurant.

  From the lounge, the inn leads you up and down stairs, along dim corridors, and through nooks and crannies to guest rooms furnished with antiques and flea-market finds. Perhaps the most eccentric room is the spacious top-floor "penthouse," which has skylights, exposed brick walls, an ample living room, and the feel of a New York City loft. The inn is not easily accessible to guests with disabilities.

  Facilities: Restaurant (regional American) w/lounge (free live jazz Sun evenings); free access to nearby YMCA (w/extensive facilities that include indoor pool, indoor track, and racquetball/basketball courts); laundry service; fax, hair dryer, iron, and safe available at front desk; free computer access in lobby.

• © Frommer's 2012

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