Hotel Plaza - Desenzano del Garda, Italy 

There is no way that Hotel Plaza deserves a four star rating. The housekeeping is poor: in the bedrooms we had evidence of the previous occupants blonde hair on the carpet, balls of dust around the wardrobe and very dusty cobwebs in the bathroom. We took a second pillow out of the wardrobe only to find it had been used by a previous occupant and put away - obviously no one had checked it since. As we opened the door there was a nasty whiff of smelly feet which I believe came from the carpet (which in both the hall way and room definitely needed cleaning) and we had to open the window wide for some time. The small terrace had not been cleaned of either the cigarette butts from a previous occupant nor the birds deposits. In addition the fixtures and fittings are cheap, old fashioned and in some cases just need replaced: the shower tray was cracked as was one of the floor tiles, there were cigarette burns in the toilet roll holder and the plastic bathroom fittings were like something out of the 70s. We could hear the fellow guests in their rooms having showers and flushing their toilets. Breakfast was a very poor affair with coffee, juice etc out of a machine and packaged everything, except a fresh croissant. We would not have stayed only the Vin Italia fair was on in Verona and getting a room elsewhere was nigh impossible - I would not recommend this hotel to any one, the only good thing about it was the girls on reception who were charming and helpful.