Island town close to pyramids

Flores boats
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When you land at the Flores airport (the closest airport to Tikal) you can take a 20 minute bus ride one direction to Flores or go about an hour the other direction to Tikal.  We had read in the guide books that Flores was a good place to stay if you wanted to visit Tikal and that while there were plenty of hotels in Flores there were only three hotels in Tikal park.  Since we had only booked a budget hotel and thought we might want to move, we figured it was better to go to Flores since there were more hotels in Flores.

View of Flores Island
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We landed at the airport and made arrangements with one of the bus drivers to take us to the hotel we had booked in Flores.  We also made arrangements to go to Tikal at 10 that morning.  The first day we dropped our luggage at our hotel and then went to Tikal for the remainder of the day.  Once we were back from Tikal (see Tikal entry) we decided to look around and see if we could find a better hotel - in particular one with a cleaner shower.  What we discovered (after looking at no less than 8 hotels) is that all of the mid range hotels in Flores are of the same standard - and that none of their showers are very nice.  We eventually found a nice brand new hotel on the mainland just the other side of Flores Island that was very nice.  Turned out to be a great choice with great views of Flores Island in the evening (which was New Years)

Nice but don't bother staying here

Flores at night
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The next day we booked a hotel in Tikal National Park and made arrangements to go to Tikal at 2pm.  That gave us a few hours to explore Flores.  Flores is a traditional spanish town with a town square in the middle.  Since it is an island the town square is actually at the top of a hill.  There are nice views of the water from the top of the town square hill.  The roads are cobble stone and the buildings have the typical red roofs.  The lake is beautiful.  People coming from Belize told us they thought it was a beautiful town but I must admit it seemed like a poor version of Antigua to us (I think Antigua may have spoiled us).  Flores is worth a look if you are visiting Tikal but I would not recommend it as a stand alone destination.  In addition, I would definitely recommend staying in Tikal Park and not bothering with staying in Flores at all.  This was confirmed by several people once we arrived at our Inn at Tikal Park.