The Chedi Milan Hotel - Milano, Italy     

The Chedi is a large boutique hotel a few kilometres north of the city centre. Its location suited me well, and on the whole the hotel itself worked well for me. I had the basic room, rather than the club level, but it was perfectly comfortable and with a better than average bathroom (separate bath and shower). The sink was a huge rectangle affair which looked good, but required an excessive amount of water to fill even to a shallow level. I personally liked the breakfast, no cooked options were on show (maybe they could be ordered?) but the cold buffet was more than adequate and had a few oddities in it too. The check in staff spoke perfectly good English, by the way, probably better than my English actually. The plug in Internet connection was slow, the wifi (code from reception) was fast. At ?10 a day (free for club members) it is relatively good value. Room service is incredibly expensive. In terms of location, actually it is not too bad. Tram line 19 is by the door; tram 1 is close by; Villapizzone rail station less than 5 minutes away. The latter has two benefits - you can get to stations on the Milan Passante (underground train service, not the same as the metro) in just a few minutes. Approx 4 trains an hour. Also you can get directly to and from Malpensa airport via Gallarte station. Gallarte is just 5 km from Malpensa so a cheap taxi ride, then the train from there to Milano Villapizzone takes 30 minutes or so. It also runs later than the Malpensa Express train service which closes down at 10 pm or so. I find the German Bahn.de website best for timings (the site can be switched to English). My glitch with the hotel concerns the automatic wakeup call system based on the TV. The room next to mine was empty but the previous guest had set the alarm, so at 0540 it kicked off, and it goes on a 5 minute musical sequence lasting one hour (at least), getting louder all the time! The next day the same thing happened again, except by 06:15 the room next along joined in too! I suppose I should have complained on day 1....

I really loved The Chedi - the bed, bedding and pillows were comfortable and encourage a good nights sleep. For me an espresso machine in the room is a real pleasure, the complementary nuts and chocolate were also delicious. The bathroom was spacious and the bath generous. The club lounge was a great place to meet up with friends before going out and offered an excellent choice of quality magazines, coffee, tea, pasties or canapes depending on the time of day. The checkout for club guests is quick and painless, all the club staff that we came into contact with were charming. Breakfast in the main restaurant offers a good choice, even salted or unsalted butter. Sadly we had a rather grumpy waitress who seemed unusually reluctant to bring coffee or tea but otherwise the hotel was faultless and gave us, I felt, very good value