Grand Hotel - Florence, Italy 

We had a wonderful stay here. The location was excellent. We had a lunch and dinner in the restaurant and they were both among the best we had in Italy. There was a duo singing at dinner which was very nice. Service throughout hotel was lovely and helpful. Would definitely stay here again.

This hotel is absolutely beautiful, and located right across the street from the river with all the gorgeous bridges. It is very conveniently located. We walked to every major site in the city. The "Winter Garden Lobby" is truly spectacular with it's stained glass ceiling arched corridors with marble columns and piped in music. It's perfect for a night cap before turning in for the evening. There are only a couple of negative things about this hotel. First, the person who checks you in walks you to your room does nothing else and expects a tip, then comes your luggage and he needs to be tipped. Only 2 people are allowed/room. We took our daughter for her senior trip and we had to rent another entire room because they didn't allow rollaway beds even though our room was huge. The other thing that was irritating was that irons were not allowed in these 5-star rooms. You had to send your pants out to be pressed at a fee of 8.50 Euro. But get ready, everything in Europe is outrageous. We were grossly dissappointed in the food all over Italy. We thought we were going to have some phenominal Italian food. Instead we starved! The food was flavorless, minimal in portion, and outrageously expensive. We have a family friend who is doing a study abroad program in Florence and he has lost 15 pounds and can hardly wait for a good meal back home. Once we got to Rome we finally found a Hard Rock Cafe and ate there every day. The only decent meal we had in all of Italy was in Florence at the La Giostra. It's run by real live Austrian royalty and even though it wasn't as flavorful as "us Texans" prefer, it was very good