Basic but great hotel if you are on a budget (Hotel Romagna (Florence, Italy))

Member Name: flodombey

Product:	Hotel Romagna (Florence, Italy)
Date:	02/03/09 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Location, price

Disadvantages: Basic and can be noisy depending on room

My husband and I stayed at this hotel for 2 nights in February 2009. We are very seasoned travellers so for the bargain of 40 Euros a night for the room we knew roughly what to expect. Basically all I want on a city break for a couple of nights is somewhere decent to sleep, I do not intend to stay in the hotel longer than is necessary - if you want the Ritz then pay the price but for 40 Euros in such a central location, this was a bargain.

Firstly the good points - the location can't really be bettered for Florence, the city as a whole is small but this hotel is perfectly situated halfway between the station (about quarter of a mile away) and the Duomo (literally a couple of hundred metres in the other direction). The room was basic but clean and had everything we needed, breakfast was continental but then that's standard for Europe and the coffee machine was a proper bean grinding one which produced unlimited cappuccinos and espressos.

The bad points - when we arrived the owner was nowhere to be seen and the hotel was locked, however after a quick phone call and a broken Italian/English conversation he turned up on his moped (in true Italian style!) and let us in and gave us our room keys. Florence is quiet in winter and we seemed to be the only guests staying, not a great start to our stay but we didn't have to wait more than about 10 minutes. Yes the rooms are small but nowhere near as small as some I have stayed in for a lot more money (Paris is the worst place by far for broom cupboards classed as rooms).

The bathroom does have a shower with no separation which means that things get wet and it's an odd shape, long and thin with the shower at the far end. This doesn't stop you using anything though. Our room was quite noisy during the day because we were on the first floor overlooking the main road, the windows do seem to be triple glazed though and when shut the level of noise was significantly reduced, we managed to sleep anyway but were occasionally woken up by sirens whizzing past or Italian football fans chanting - happens in every city though (not Italian fans obviously!).

For what we paid I was more than happy with the accommodation and the facilities, we had a TV in our room which is more than I would expect, although it only had MTV as an English speaking channel. The staff were friendly, the room was cleaned well during the day while we were out and the beds were comfy.

Basically if you are doing Florence on a budget then this place will be more than sufficient and great value for money, but if you hate anything less than 4 star opulence then this probably isn't the place for you!

Summary: Great if you just want somewhere to sleep and aren't fussy