Hotels

Ibis Hotel Reims Tinqueux, France

Room very small but comfortable. WiFi was quite sluggish. Quite a largish restaurant for a budget hotel and the food was fine. However, my wife had a pork roll meal with an evening meal and although we can’t prove anything, my wife subsequently had serious diarrhoea which required a hospital visit to receive appropriate medication. It was noticeable at the time that the restaurant staff were rushing around to complete their shift at 9pm.

Parma Congressi Hotel, Parma, Italy

This is a 4* quality hotel and we had an excellent room. However, we were a bit surprised that there were some issues we would not have expected, ie the air conditioning control was broken, the plumbing was very noisy and we could easily hear our neighbours talking. As we were on a Leger coach party we must have had the budget meals provided since the food was not great and we were kept separate from other guests.

Hotel Mary, Vico Equense, Italy

This is a typical Italian Hotel situated on a steep hillside overlooking the Bay of Naples. As such the views from our balcony were outstanding and the sunset at night was quite spectacular. As we were part of a coach party we didn’t get the standard of room as shown on the Hotel website but it was very comfortable and typically Italian with the local style of quaint plumbing in the bathroom. The accommodation was clean and the room service excellent. However, because the hotel was on a steep hillside in a valley, noise is magnified when the weather is fine and at night barking dogs and church bells can be disturbing. We were also bitten a couple of times at night in bed so I resorted to a Deet-Up each night and that cured the problem. My wife had a medical issue whilst staying there and a member of staff was good enough to take us to the local hospital and translate for my wife when she saw the doctor so we were extremely grateful for that. The food was very good but the only issue we had was that no water was freely available at meal times, all water had to be purchased as bottled water. This might have been because the local water quality was suspect.

Hotel Mediterraneo, ChianCiano Terme, Italy

We had a room in this Hotel with a balcony overlooking the front of the Hotel. The room itself was very comfortable and we had a very good night’s sleep. We were only at the Hotel for one night as part of a coach party so we all had the same evening meal. For a starter we had Lasagne and for me this was the best Lasagne I have ever tasted and our expectations were quite high for the rest of the meal but the main course was a chicken leg, lukewarm mash and stone cold French beans. This may have been a normal local dish but a number of the party were not very happy. Whilst our bedroom was fine, the bathroom was not. There was no light working in the bathroom, there was only a dribble of cold water from the sink tap and the toilet was smelly and quite disgusting below the waterline.......no excuse for that in a modern hotel.

Hotel Continental, Cremona, Italy

A very smart modern Hotel. We had a very comfortable room with a nice high ceiling. The lighting system was a bit of a puzzle since all light were controlled by the room card and either on or off so to enable just our bedside lights we had to unplug the rest in order to sleep. The food was very good. Because Cremona is the home of the Stradivarius violin, all the corridor walls were covered in music, very unusual.

Cottage Hotel, Reims, France.

Having stayed at the Ibis in Reims, we thought we had already found the smallest double room in a budget French Hotel but no, the double room in the Cottage Hotel was minute. With 2 people and 2 cases in the room, it was full up, we has to be quite careful moving about. The bed itself was a standard double but comfortable. It looked as if the room had been refurbished and a drencher shower fitted in the bathroom, however, the drencher spray itself had slightly come apart so when we turned it on we nearly flooded the bathroom. We only had breakfast here and although the spread was a bit limited, the food quality was good.