Hotel Granduca - San Giuliano Terme, Italy     

The Hotel An ugly 3 star hotel is in a small boring village about 5 miles from Pisa that looks like a set of shipping containers. You'll need a car if you don't like waiting around for buses. I used it for business purposes for several months, had a company car so wasn't fussed about it's location. Everything in the hotel was dated from the 1970s and you did not have a good comfortable feel when you entered the hotel. The hotel was kept clean. Breakfast wasn't great and having tried dinner once, I didn't try it again, it was really substandard. The staff were very unfriendly so I kept my interaction with them to an absolute minimum. I asked them if I would pay a premium for using the room phone for national and international calls, they said no, but when I got the bill I could see that they did charge extra. When I confronted them with this they became dismissive of my argument. The hotel doesn't really offer anything to the tourist that they can't get in Pisa. I would never stay there as a tourist. So stay in Pisa rather than this place. Personally, as a tourist wouldn't stay in Pisa either: see below The Pisani The attitude on the hotel staff is symptomatic of Pisani. They are in general rude people who only want your money. I lived there for a while and believe me I have experienced it. You are just dollar signs to them - hotels, restaurants, buses, train station staff all the same. Three of us enjoying a Friday night in a restaurant were screamed at to get out 5 minutes after we had finished the third course of a three course meal, we were not allowed to buy more drinks and enjoy the end of a hard weeks work. Disgusting. In restaurants NEVER complain about the service or food before they have finished serving everything. If you don't like it send it back and walk away. I was told this by several Italian friends. Pisa One day is enough in Pisa. There is nothing else to look at other than this over hyped Tower, it will take roughly 20 minutes. You can spend the rest of the day shopping or visiting the fort town of Luca. I would certainly avoid staying in Pisa and book a hotel in Florence, from where you can visit San Giminiano and Siena.

The TVs have poor reception, the rooms are sprayed with a particularly nauseating fragrance, the decor is tatty, the staff are surly, the bar is an utter rip-off, the lift almost jammed and the breakfast buffet is a sorry excuse of discount supermarket scraps. And they clean so well that there was a pubic hair in the drinking glass in the bathroom. Apart from that, we enjoyed our stay a great deal.