We’ve stayed here before and hated it. This time, to our surprise, it wasn’t that bad.
The coach has to park around the corner, but cases are brought to you by the drivers.
On other visits there has been a “street party” outside the hotel in the main square going on until midnight; this time, probably time of year, it wasn’t there, so peace and quiet reigned.
It was still an Ibis Styles; small, quirkily decorated rooms but clean and comfortable. Breakfast was adequate although the breakfast room isn’t quite big enough for a large group.
There is a bakery right next to where the coach parks and, according to Margaret (pastry guru) it sells some of the best pains-au-raisins in all of France. Did we buy some? Do fish swim?
This was one of the best hotels of the tour, located a few miles outside Parma. A good sized, comfortable room and excellent food and service.
The evening meal was very Italian, well prepared & served and very tasty. Pasta, osso bucco, and panna cotta - no complaints here!
Breakfast was outstanding. Not only were the “usual suspects” available, they also offered a selection of mini pizza-like and calzone-like savouries and an extensive array of cakes.
If only we’d known what was coming next, we’d have asked to be picked up on the way home!!!
Over the years we’ve stayed in many an hotel. This, without a shadow of a doubt, was the worst hotel we’ve ever stayed in. If Italy has an asylum-seeker problem, if they were housed here, they’d volunteer to return home.
Where to begin? Let’s start with the room.
I estimated it to be around 10’ x 10’ - 100 square foot. Smaller than the prison cell to be given to the recently gaoled French ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Do you remember when shower gel came in little plastic pouches (around 1970’s I think)? We were lucky enough to have one each of those. That’s if you could actually fit in the shower! There wasn’t enough room in the cubicle to bend down. If you dropped something - open the door to leave room for your butt to stick out.
There was a larger-than-the room shared terrace area (useful if you want other guests to view you in bed - there were curtains thankfully). It was difficult to use, because the door to it couldn’t open fully… it hit the bed!
There wasn’t an identical coat hanger. All were left over dry cleaner plastic or metal hangers again dating back to the 70’s.
The food defied belief. Over the 2 days it included: badly cooked pasta dishes (it’s Italy!!), thinly sliced roast pork with mushy peas, sausage meat fritters and soggy fries, and some dried-out cake desserts. All of these delights were served by morose waiting staff at a snail’s pace.
Breakfast!!! Even the cornetto (croissants) were supermarket style, long dated plastic wrapped delicacies.
We’d decided not to go on an excursion to Rome so had inflicted a day in Fiuggi on ourselves. Fortunately, we stumbled on a pavement café so were able to keep body and soul together at lunch.
The Guardia di Finanza (the militarised Italian Financial Police) were present at the hotel throughout the time we were there. Why? Don’t know? But the management know how to defraud paying customers! Maybe???
This was a pretty good hotel. Good sized room with a bathroom door arrangement we’ve never before seen and was such a great idea. It closed the room off from the bathroom and shower, but when opened could be used to separate the WC from the rest of the bathroom. Useful if two of you need the facilities.
A unique feature is that it’s located next to a safari and theme park. Some of our group visited the safari park and thought it well worth the visit. What made it fun was, as dawn broke, from our room, which was on the zoo-side of the building, you could hear animals waking up and greeting the day. The loudest noise, we think, were hippopotami, bellowing at the top of their voices. Not a problem. Something different.
Food service was variable in the extreme. All the breakfasts were as good as you’d hope for (in Italy). Dinners, however, were as inconsistent as can be.
On the first night we enjoyed a tomato pasta, beef medallions with a mushroom sauce and a lovely panna cotta, served with care and attention. The wine was good and reasonably priced.
They had a pre-order menu with choices for the following evening. Whether this was the source of what followed… who knows?
The second evening was chaos. Although we’d been asked to use the same tables, they had no idea who’d ordered what.
For the starter, choice #1 was brought out and offered around. Pasta served to around 70% of guests. Twenty-five (25) minutes later, there was still no sign of starter #2, soup. “Representations” were made by the couriers and it finally arrived.
The chef sent out canapé style compensations whilst everyone got on the same page of the menu. Tasty, but not real food. Then they offered a top-up for the pasta eaters.
The second course followed a similar pattern. Choice #1 was sausage (coiled, Cumberland style and visually resembled puppy poop in the park). Choice #2, an octopus stew (my choice) was delicious when it arrived 5 minutes later. What! No vegetables for the sausages? Yes, 10 minutes after the octopus was served. Most sausage eaters had finished their sausage long before (it was that big!)
The dessert was a lovely panna cotta drenched in chocolate sauce. No problems here. No choices. Total elapsed time for a 3 course meal, 2¼ hours.
Day 3 brought a further variation to service. A slightly less chaotic starter course, pasta with sausage, (I wonder where that sausage idea came from) and soup were served in good time. These were followed by a slow, but organised, service of main courses. I had choice #1, calamari & prawn skewers. Margaret had #2, chicken, which was so dry it could have doubled as a kitchen towel. Vegetables were once again an after-thought. The dessert was a layer cake which, to be fair, was moist and delicious.
I forgot to make notes on day 4 so probably all went fairly smoothly (or maybe I’d lost the will to live by then!)
It’s a shame the restaurant let down the hotel which was of a very good standard in terms of both decorative public areas, good wi-fi and well equipped, clean and well serviced bedrooms.
Inconsistency is becoming a theme.
This hotel seems to grip the side of a mountain between the somewhat shabby town and riviera rich harbour. You enter through a time-tunnel to around 1959.
It is clean and tidy but everything, including the rooms seem to exist in the past. Furnishings, decor, layout of public areas all harked back to “simpler times”. Our room was on the small side but adequate. We’ve come to accept that, on this tour, “adequate” will have to do.
The meals were buffet style (1970’s maybe). We’re not keen on buffets, and this one didn’t do much to change our minds.
There were, on all days, many things you’d class as starters that were very very good. Salads, roasted vegetables, frittata, potato croquettes with flavourings and fillings added, and the like. Main courses, not so much; the curse of buffet meals.
Proteins Examples: Chicken, cooked to death; calamari stew where the fish needed no teeth to chew it; calamari/prawns fritto with soggy bread coating from steaming in its tray.
Pasta Examples: Spaghetti that looked like worms drowning in pinkish water; gloopy ravioli caused by cooking away in the sauce. Orecchiette that resembled rubber in texture.
Desserts: A range of assorted cakes, often seen at breakfast.
What was strange was their fear of diners leaving food by taking too much. Had it not occurred to them that most of the “waste” was people leaving the inedible?
Every next day, you’d spot yesterday’s leftovers converted into salads.
Breakfast made up for dinner. A good range of Italian breakfast items AND bacon and scrambled eggs (where the eggs were eggs, not the powdered muck favoured by Hilton, et al.)
Each time we move on, it’s beginning to feel like we’re throwing loaded dice.
This hotel was a real surprise. Previous write ups had trashed it for it OTT decor and “Barbara Cartland” features. Yes, true, but it enhanced the experience.
Some rooms had floral wallpaper, including the ceilings. Some had di Vinci style religious art on one wall and a nude on the opposite wall (now… that could keep you awake!)
Ours seemed conservative by comparison until, in the dark with a small light leak from the bathroom, we discovered that sequins had been embedded in the paint.
The evening meal (pasta, lamb shank with herbed potatoes, chocolate mousse cake) and breakfast were both excellent.
The little town of Bellaria with its sea front looked a far better place to have stayed than Rodi G. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all (but it’d be nice to win one of them!!)
Another one-off experience.
The coach couldn’t get close to the hotel so we had a few minutes walk, crossing a busy road to get there. Maybe to allow time for cases to be brought from the coach, we were greeted with a glass of very ordinary prosecco and a manager who loved the sound of his own voice. I’m sure his welcome speech was well intended, but after several hours on a coach with an itinerary stop along the way, what we wanted most was our room and its bathroom. We were set free after about 15 minutes.
The room was small but clean and functional. We’ve come to accept that as part of the tour. Although the wifi had a password so complicated GCHQ would have had trouble.cracking it, we discovered that wifi was only available in public areas.
Buying drinks was an extraordinary process. You had to buy either a €20 or €40 drinks ticket in advance. As you ordered drinks they “marked your card”. Unused cash was to be refunded at the end. In the restaurant you had to visit the bar to order and collect your own drinks. No such thing as waiters in this place.
The food matched the “down the pub” approach to drinks. Actually, most local pubs would be ashamed to serve it.
Both nights, in fairness, good pasta dishes were served, then a limited buffet salad was available.
The main courses?
Day 1: Some sort of meat loaf and French fries (soggy variety).
Day 2: Hamburger or Salmon (which turned out to be thinly cut swordfish, including bones) both accompanied with “boiled for 12 hours” cauliflower.
Desserts: Cakes of some sort.
Breakfasts were standard Italian, but with less choice than usual.
Sadly by now, none of this was surprising or shocking.
Nothing much to say about his hotel. A standard “city style” room (arguably better than some of the tour hotels), no dinner included (a blessing?) and a very acceptable breakfast before departure to the channel port.
