 Where to stay in Italy
Hotels in Italy: Grand Hotel in Sopot, Italy
Author: Alina Zienowicz (public domain)
As a country that attracts a lot of tourists from all over the world, Italy offers a good range of accommodation. They range from luxurious hotels in converted palaces, to more humble family-run hostels and pensioni or bed-and-breakfasts. There are also self-catering apartments and villas that you can rent, along with holiday flats in many of Italy's seaside resorts.
In Italy, hotels are known as albergo, or alberghi in plural. On the whole, accommodation in Italy is expensive. Not only that, in the cities, even the rooms in expensive hotels are quite small. For the same price, you can get much more spacious accommodation in the countryside or in neighboring countries.
Although hotels in Italy are notorious for their exorbitant prices and often wanting service, there are plenty of places that offer excellent value for the price you pay.
Grand Hotel Miramare, Genoa
Author: Alessio Sbarbaro (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
Hotel Grading
In Italy, the hotels are graded from one to five stars. This depends more on the facilities they offer than the atmosphere of the place. Bear in mind that the star rating of hotels in Italy is not standardized, each region award the stars accoridng to its own interpretation of the criteria.
As hotels with more stars pay higher taxes, some hotels actually either opted not to upgrade their star rating, or the tourist office did not update the details.
Facilities
It may come as a surprise to many, but hotels in Italy tend to offer fewer facilities for the same number of stars, than those in neighboring countries. For example, many hotels do not provide air-conditioning, which you will find only in the five-star establishments.
Hotel Italia in Marina di Massa
Author: sailko (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
Meals
Many hotels will try to insist that you take full board (room with three meals provided). Resist this if you can, as you can easily find food to eat at a cheaper rate outside the hotel. The breakfast is usually a buffet, especially if you are staying at a four- or five-star establishment. At the pensioni, the breakfast is more spartan - coffee and biscuits or brioches with butter and jam. Avoid having to pensioni breakfast included, as you can enjoy a better meal at the local bar or restaurant.
Pricing
Hotel rooms in Italy are generally high compared to many neighboring countries, more so during the peak seasons. Taxes and service charge are usually included to the price. As a rough guide, expect to pay €50 for a double room without an attached bathroom, or €65 for one with bathroom, at the most basic hotel in a major Italian city. Outside the major cities, if you want a room you some comfort, expect to spend €100. To get a room with really good facilities, you are looking at €210 and above. In big hotels, rooms with better views are usually sold at a higher price. In many resort areas, the price of rooms more than double during the peak season.
Booking
It is wise to book your room as early as possible, that is, at least two months before your arrival date. Many popular hotels can be fully booked half a year in advance.
The peak season is August for the beach destinations and February for the mountain resorts. As for cities, their peak periods are dependent on particular festivals or feast days that may take place there.
Royal Hotel Victoria in Pisa
Author: sailko (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
A useful way to book your room is to go online. There are many popular hotel booking sites available on the web nowadays, and they often offer rates that are more attractive than that offered by the hotels to direct customers. This is due to the volume of business that the sites channel to the hotels.
As different hotel booking site may quote a different rate for the same room of a hotel, a good way to determine which site offers the lowest rate for the date of your travel is to use this hotel room rate comparison engine. It lists out the prices offered by different booking sites according to your destinative and travel date.
On this page, I list out different types of accommodation providers you will find it Italy. I hope the details I provide here will be helpful to you when you are looking for accommodation for your Italian vacation.
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