Hotel Villa Traiano

“Pleasantly Surprised!”

Hotel Villa Traiano is a bona fide luxury hotel. U.S. travelers, fear not: when I arrived at Benevento train station I thought, “Oh boy, we’re not in Kansas anymore.” I felt like I was whisked back to the Soviet Bloc with 30-year-old cars and 70-year-old tenement houses. But when the hotel’s (super… more

Hotel Villa Traiano is a bona fide luxury hotel. U.S. travelers, fear not: when I arrived at Benevento train station I thought, “Oh boy, we’re not in Kansas anymore.” I felt like I was whisked back to the Soviet Bloc with 30-year-old cars and 70-year-old tenement houses. But when the hotel’s (super friendly) private cab driver pulled up in front of the hotel, I was very pleasantly surprised. Villa Traiano is a legit hotel: ultra clean; beautiful, modern finishes; automated sliding glass doors; the whole deal. It is just like any current, high-end hotel you’d find in a major U.S. city. My suite (room 714), like the rest of the hotel, was clean, spacious, and had all expected modern amenities (digitally controlled A/C, beverage fridge, an assortment of high-end soaps, shampoos, and body lotions, plush bath robes, and soft, high-quality bath towels). Highlights included the supremely comfortable bedding, strong water pressure from the rainfall shower head, and the jetted tub. Breakfast was delicious with a full assortment of pastries, juices, yogurt, fruit, and cold cuts, and all the front desk staff were friendly and near-fluent English speakers. From someone who stays regularly at high-end hotels across the U.S., Hotel Villa Traiano comes highly recommended.

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“Decent room, great location, bollixed breakfast in Benevento”

This was our first visit to Benevento, and the Hotel Villa Traiano helped make it a positive experience. Its location a half a block up from the city's most stunning historical site, the arch of the eponymous Trajan, is certainly advantageous. (Not so much its distance from the railway station -- 1… more

This was our first visit to Benevento, and the Hotel Villa Traiano helped make it a positive experience. Its location a half a block up from the city's most stunning historical site, the arch of the eponymous Trajan, is certainly advantageous. (Not so much its distance from the railway station -- 1.5 km.) The hotel entrance seems to invite you into a classic villa from the turn of the last century, but we were given a room in a second building, at the back of the hill, that is joined to the first by a capacious transparent roof that creates a vast common area. But the initial impression is jarring -- you're directed from the reception to an elevator down some floors, then walk across the common area under the canopy to the next building, and then take an elevator up (in our case, to floor 7). It wasn't actually bad, just a little weird -- quirky, we should say; even cute. Anyway, the room itself was fine, though not especially spacious. It had good Wi-Fi and a good writing table. The bathroom had everything we'd need -- no complaints there. Our one complaint was the breakfast service. We went down for breakfast a little late, a bit after 8:30, and were astonished to find that the buffet table had been picked through with almost nothing left. Attendants made brief appearances, but little effort was made to re-stock the buffet table for nearly a half hour. We scrounged for something we could eat till somebody in the kitchen decided to resupply the table, forcing us to wolf down what we could eat quickly in order to make our onward train. It may just have been a bad morning for the kitchen staff, but if it happens more regularly, that would be a problem. And we expect better in a joint where we're paying €175 a night.

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