Hotel Italia

“Can I make it a hundred stars please?”

We found this cosy hotel well priced and oh so quiet and certainly a 5 star rating for the price. All the staff spoke excellent English and were unfailingly courteous. There’s a lift that helps if you have heavy luggage to manage. I think we paid around £80 a night for two and their help yourse… more

We found this cosy hotel well priced and oh so quiet and certainly a 5 star rating for the price. All the staff spoke excellent English and were unfailingly courteous. There’s a lift that helps if you have heavy luggage to manage. I think we paid around £80 a night for two and their help yourself breakfast came in at less than a fiver each. Brekky was ace - great coffee, juices, hams and cheeses, 3/4 varieties of jams, croissants, fresh fruit, cereals, yogurts and I’m sure I’ve left stuff out. The bedroom was well furnished, the shower could get to super hot and the entire place was spic & span clean. It’s pretty central and a 5 or so minute walk to the James Joyce statue in one direction and about the same the other way to the main Trieste train station. But now I must note my gratitude to the folks who work here. This was 5 star priceless. I arrived here weak and ill, discharged from a local Trieste hospital after 40 hours, having been food poisoned on an MSC cruise ship and dispatched from their ship hospital (where I was very well treated) to the hospital. My wife on the other hand was left by MSC to struggle on the dockside as the Armonia sailed away, just as the sun set, with most of our luggage still aboard. That’s a whole other story and we did re - board ship a week later in Venice. The only reason the ship docked in Trieste was high winds in Venice. On early morning arrival here from hospital to check-in we were offered cappuccinos and pastries while our room was prepared and it turned out these were complimentary. They knew we were coming and that I’d been hospitalised. Thereafter they helped us beyond our ability in words to thank them for all their kindnesses. I mean if Italy has an honours system for those who help others these gentle people deserve to be top of the list. One day I needed a doctor to get a fit to travel certificate and the young man at reception put in 14 phone calls for me including waiting on call backs. Over an hour later he achieved what I needed - just pause to think about this - over an hour and he dealt with other calls and guests too. What he did we simply could not have achieved by ourselves. My wife and I were just stunned at this humanity which came with a smile. Then he announced he needed a coffee and promptly proceeded to make all three of us cappuccinos offering fruit and pastries again all on the house. They translated for us, including medical papers, organised many taxi rides including one to Venice and could not have done more. So we can’t recommend here strongly enough. We truly were in great need and they delivered 100% and y’know we’ll never forget the humanity and all we could do was say thank you and we said it a lot.

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