Della Signoria - Florence, Italy     

I stayed at the Hotel Della Signoria for two weeks this May. While the hotel itself was okay (although there were some issues, more on those later) the area was horrible at night. Night after night there was screaming and yelling of people carrying on in the streets below. Some nights, such as Fridays and Saturdays became so loud that even with ear plugs in and a sleeping pill, I was unable to fall asleep. This noise would sometimes go as late as 4 am. I am not some little 'country bumpkin' who can't deal with a little street noise; I live in a city of 1,000,000 people and I lived right downtown for several years. I am used to, and actually like street noise (traffic, sirens, people coming and going); however, listening to rowdy, screaming drunks every night is unacceptable. Now on to the hotel itself. The front desk staff were pleasant and friendly for the most part. One of the gentlemen up there was particularly helpful and helped us to plan a lovely guided tour in Tuscany. The cleaning ladies and breakfast ladies were also fairly pleasant. The rooms were inconsistent. Our first room was on the fourth floor and was not very nice - it looked like it was decorated in the early 1970s and the bathroom and fixtures all looked like they were from that era as well. In this room, we didn't have a shower (just a hand-held sprayer in a tub) and the taps wouldn't turn off and dripped constantly. Due to the above mentioned noise, we asked to be moved to a different room that faced a side-street rather than the main street (which actually made no difference to the noise levels). We were moved to a room on the fifth floor which was actually a lot nicer. The decor was more modern and the bathroom had taps that worked and a real shower; however, in this room the toilet didn't work. We had to plan our flushes because the toilet would only flush once an hour, and if anyone in a neighbouring room flushed, then you better start timing again. This was pretty gross and frustrating. The breakfast was okay but nothing special. I have been to many different hotels all over Italy and it is usually standard for there to be a small buffet with meats, cheeses, breads, cereal, yogurt and fruit - this hotel only offered you bread unless you wanted to pay extra, so if you can opt out of the breakfast, do. The hotel was very close to all the main sites in Florence, but in the future I would stay across the river in the Oltrano area or perhaps out of town all together. The noise made it very hard to be enthusiastic about staying in this area of Florence.

Resulta sorprendente, y muy agradable, ver cómo han mejorado los hoteles italianos en los últimos años. Sin llegar a ser un gran hotel, las tres estrellas del Hotel de la Signoria son más que merecidas. Mobiliario antiguo y sin alardes, con una cierta degradación pero sin estar descuidado, lo que le da un ligero sabor clásico. La mayoría de las habitaciones son espaciosas, muy luminosas y limpias, eso sí, como es un clásico en los hoteles italianos, no espereis encontrar todo un juego de aseo en el baño, como mucho un sobrecito de gel y gracias. Muy poco personal de servicio pero muy atento. El desayuno no es buffet, consiste en cafe o equivalente con croissant, panes variados, mermeladas, nuttella y zumo de naranja, pero repito que no es para quejarse porque este hotel tiene tres estrellas y está bastante bien de precio. Por último la ubicación. Simplemente un 10, la mejor de toda Florencia sin ninguna duda.