Palazzo Firenze

“V Pleased with my last minute hotel choice”

This hotel was a very last minute choice late in the evening. I was very pleased. A quiet hotel in a busy area. Very friendly staff. Lovely cool and decent sized room with a large shower, aircon, fridge etc. Only thing missing was a kettle - you know how us English like our cup of tea. Breakfast is… more

This hotel was a very last minute choice late in the evening. I was very pleased. A quiet hotel in a busy area. Very friendly staff. Lovely cool and decent sized room with a large shower, aircon, fridge etc. Only thing missing was a kettle - you know how us English like our cup of tea. Breakfast is on the roof terrace which is a nice touch. Good spread for breakfast - pastries, breads, cheese, meat, fruit, bacon etc, juices and a coffee machine. There is also a small pool and bar on the roof - I didn’t use these but after the heat of a July day in Naples, I was tempted. The hotel also saved me with some laundry I needed doing - even though it was a weekend, it was done by the evening on the same day and reasonably priced. You might find the immediate area ‘interesting’ - it is the classic streets around a mainline station vibe, fine in the daytime, maybe less so after dark if you are on your own. Although I was on my own and I had no problems and there are lots of police around (as is often the case in Italy). Mainline station and Metro stop are only 5 mins away and it’s 15 mins walk to Toledo, Dante etc.

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“Not what it seems”

The area round this hotel is rough and squalid as sometimes happens in the proximity of a major railway station. Being near the station was why we chose to stay there. This is the sort of hotel you recognise has management problems. It might be designated four star but it isn’t four star service. T… more

The area round this hotel is rough and squalid as sometimes happens in the proximity of a major railway station. Being near the station was why we chose to stay there. This is the sort of hotel you recognise has management problems. It might be designated four star but it isn’t four star service. The staff are unhappy; they rarely smiled and everything seemed a lot of trouble to them. Forgetting where their salaries come from, they obviously think the hotel would be so much better run if there weren’t any guests to get in the way. One staff member was positively gleeful to tell us the rooftop area was closed for the day. The main staircase was unlit on some floors, and has nasty steps from the central area into the corridors. These are unmarked and dangerous. The lift (elevator) was slow and doubled as the service lift, so long waits for it to arrive were inevitable. Breakfast had three staff - two too many. They stood looking glum most of the time and if they roused themselves to clear a table it wasn’t ours. So we simply moved our used dishes onto an adjacent table. The dirty dishes weren’t cleared from there either. There were no extra utensils, so if you used a knife for eggs, the same knife had to be used for jam. There were two coffee machines which you needed a degree in astrophysics to operate. The staff stood by, unwilling to help, as guest after guest struggled to understand them. The breakfast food was ok but in an area of Italy teeming with, and famous for its market gardens and fruit orchards, the pineapple and peach slices were out of tins - it’s so much easier to open a tin than peel a fresh grapefruit. This was once a grand 19th century building with cool, high ceilings. Our room was large, but the “modern” decorating philosophy (circa 1995? Pre-internet days certainly, as there are no USB points) was definitely ‘design over function’. There were no pictures on the walls which gave it a sparse, cold feel. There was just one hook in a double room on which we both had to hang all our towels and dressing gowns. The glass shower was part of the original room, so with no hook or towel rail, the only option was to emerge soaking wet into the bedroom to grab a towel. Between the two of us there were four coat hangers in the wardrobe. Strangest of all, in this huge room which could easily accommodate a large sofa, there was only one small, hard chair to sit on. Clearly the managers had never actually stayed in these rooms, or they would have spotted these flaws immediately. There were no coffee or tea making facilities in the room, no iron or ironing board, no room service and no restaurant. This is an expensive Bed and Breakfast masquerading as a four star hotel. The wi-fi in our room was not working. We were promised technicians were coming to sort it out the following morning. Of course, it still wasn’t working the following day. No surprises there… The rooftop is lovely - if it’s open, but don’t hold your breath.

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“Avoid this area.”

Hotel itself is really nice. Very clean and tidy. Superb showers in the room. Breakfast was basic but did the job. Unfortunately the hotel is in a very bad area. We did not feel safe at all at any part of the day. Several gangs of men hanging around, homelessness pretty much everywhere and rubbish … more

Hotel itself is really nice. Very clean and tidy. Superb showers in the room. Breakfast was basic but did the job. Unfortunately the hotel is in a very bad area. We did not feel safe at all at any part of the day. Several gangs of men hanging around, homelessness pretty much everywhere and rubbish piled high on the streets.

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