The hotels, such as they were, could be pretty awful

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 177.  

We loved those tours. The hotels, such as they were, could be pretty awful; the food often constituted a serious challenge. But the scenery—particularly in the south—was spectacular, and the lovely unspoilt villages were made more colorful still by the costumes. In those days virtually all the country people normally wore their local dress, which varied dramatically from place to place. In northern Croatia the girls wore long many-pleated snow-white skirts almost to the ground, which seemed to remain spotless however deep the mud; in Bosnia—still largely Muslim—the usual dress for the women—who were never veiled—took the form of brightly patterned baggy Turkish trousers; in Macedonia their clothes were the most extraordinary of all, with black skirts and heavily braided jackets studded with gold coins. But all too soon we would have to return to Belgrade. Anne, who is really happy only when she is painting, found a spare room at the top of the Chancery building in which she could set up an easel; I sat at my desk writing reports on our tours, dealing with correspondence, drafting dispatches for my seniors to amend and improve, reading and summarizing the newspapers and generally doing any odd jobs that came my way.