Hotel Amleto - Pompei, Italy 

My mother, stepsister, and I stayed at Hotel Amleto for 3 nights and 3 days and just loved it! The staff were very friendly, welcoming, professional, and willing to accomodate our needs. We arranged a private tour of Pompeii and had problems getting in touch with our Italian guide from the US so they did it for us! At no charge. The rooms were clean with enough room and we had lovely balconies and terraces to relax on. The hotel's location near the back gate of Pompeii is ideal and I suggest you start your tour from the back gate as you'll see more and avoid the huge crowds. The basilica in Pompeii was also lovely and very busy. I highly recommend Hotel Amleto!

As others have noted, the "4-star" label applied to some Italian hotels seems rather generous, but I realized after our trip that if a hotel has a garage, it is a 4-star hotel. Since we did not have a car on our trip, the garage was unnecessary to us, so we did not utilize it. The lobby is beautiful, as is the main entryway, but its old world Italian roots are readily realized when you walk into the boarding area. The blue and gold flowered tile is pretty, because it's Italy, but the lighting fixtures and layout of the rooms gives its true age. The bed was quite uncomfortable and the mechanical shutters were interesting, but not really necessary. The view from our room was another wall, and we had a little balcony on which two people could stand, but it was over a patio that the other rooms beside ours shared. It was difficult to find the hotel coming from the main Pompei train station, but once we got our bearings, it was easy to locate and it was a good location to access one of the entrances to the Pompeii ruins, an excellent restaurant, and some shopping. The access to free internet was outstanding, and although we asked for our room not to be cleaned, it was still cleaned--meticulously. The hotel has its ups and downs, but overall it was safe, a bit dated, but the breakfast was good.