Idyllic Italy - Tips for Obtaining Your Ideal Room


Hotel Belvedere, Taormina, Sicily Photo by S. Kane

The cities and towns of Italy that are major tourist attractions, such as Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Bologna, Siena, Assisi, Naples, Ravenna, Verona, Bellagio, and dozens of others offer a wide variety of hotels in many price ranges.

Less famous towns have fewer hotels to choose from, often with fewer amenities. In the past several years, as tourism has expanded, more B&B accommodations, from Cinque Terre to Syracuse, Sicily, have become available, expanding your choices.

Once you have narrowed your choices to a few hotels in each destination, you can use these tips to help you select hotels and hotel rooms that will meet and even exceed your expectations:

Reserve as early as possible.
You may want to reserve for only the first night or two, and then choose your hotel for subsequent nights once you are in Italy. This strategy depends on your tolerance for risk, your destination, the time of year, and how much of your time in Italy you want to spend doing this. If you will depart from a city where you will be spending only your last night, such as Pisa or Milan, we recommend that you also reserve that night before you start your vacation.
If you found a hotel you liked on a site that doesn’t provide photographs or sketches, you are likely to find the hotel at Welcome to Italy, with a link to the hotel’s own website. If you don’t find the hotel there, you can use a search engine such as www.google.com . Specify the name of the hotel and the city. For example, to locate the website for the Hotel Cimabue in Florence, specify those four words: Hotel Cimabue in Florence. By locating the hotel’s website, you can usually communicate directly with the hotel by email.
Check the room price directly with the hotel. Unfortunately, some web sites are not updated frequently, and the price may be out of date. Moreover, when a hotel’s price range is very broad, say from $75 to $225, and you were planning to pay about $100 a night for your room, do not assume that most rooms in the range of $75-$225 are outside your budget. Often, hotels have a few suites whose prices can be almost twice as expensive as the average room, making it appear that the room rates are much higher than they actually are. Also, high and low rates are sometimes provided for each room type. The high and low rates usually correspond to the high and low seasons. The season is not the same in each city, or for that matter, within the city. Many hotels offer a discount in the winter month, except for Christmas week. Hotels in Italian cities, except near the coast, often offer discounts in July and August. Note that the quoted rate almost always includes the tax and often includes breakfast.
Do you want to be within walking distance of cafes, restaurants, and tourist sights? Make sure to check the location of the hotel or B&B. Some city hotels are located outside the center, such as on the ring road or beyond, miles from the historic center (centro storico).
If you are considering a recommendation from a colleague, make sure that your tastes in accommodations are similar. For my first trip to Paris, two young male colleagues both recommended a hotel in Paris, which was also the top choice in the Let’s Go Paris guidebook. It was a far cry from being the hotel of my dreams; in fact, it was a disaster. Only the location was wonderful, but that, too, was compromised because the view from our room was of an abandoned building. Re-energized by the shock, we were able to find a fine hotel, thanks to an excellent New York Times article by Patricia Wells on her twenty-five favorite small hotels in Paris which I had brought with me.
Be as clear as possible about what you want when you make your reservation. If you want a room with a view, be sure to ask for that. If you require a quiet room, ask for that. If you would like a double bed, ask for a letto matrimoniale. Double beds seem to be scarce in Italy. If a bathtub is important, ask for that.
You may want to be flexible about bathroom facilities. Most rooms without private baths have at least a sink and sometimes a sink and shower, or sink and bidet, in the room. In two hotels in Venice, we experienced such arrangements. In one hotel, the bedroom had a sink and a portable bidet in it. The full bathroom was just outside the bedroom door and had a six-foot tub. In the other hotel, the bedroom had a sink and shower and a half bath a very short distance from our bedroom. In both cases, the hotel location and the views from the rooms far surpassed the slight inconvenience of not having a full private bathroom. An added advantage is that a room without a private bath is less expensive than one with a private bath.
If you have narrowed your choice to two hotels and are having a difficult time deciding which one, consider splitting your time between the two. If you fall in love with the first one, you may be able to extend your stay there. If the first one does not meet your expectations, you may be able to begin your stay sooner at the second hotel.
As soon as you register, and before you carry your luggage to your room, ask to see the room. This request is quite common and will usually be met graciously. If you find the room is not what you expected, it is much easier to request another room at this time than after you have started to settle into a room that doesn’t meet your expectations.