Relais San Rocco - Sestri Levante, Italy     

I was struggling to find anywhere reasonably decent/affordable/accessible and available in this area of the Italian Riviera, when I came across the Relais San Rocco Hotel in Sestri Lavante. The reviews on Trip Advisor looked pretty good so I went ahead and booked in for one night. Oh dear, what a disappointment - it's in the middle of nowhere! Our car drove up the steep twisty winding lanes to find this lonely hotel at the top of the mountain. Yes it had fantastic views of the bay, but I found the Hotel to be a sad little place really. Maybe it didn't help as for the one day we were there the weather was attrocious and everything seems miserable then, but I just felt the hotel lacked any atmosphere at all. It has recently been refurbished, so the rooms were actually very pleasant and the beds were huge. The bathroom was one of the nicest we've had on our trip and all rooms had electronic key cards. But it all seemed in vain as there were no facilities there or in the immediate surroundings. It's such a lonely little place it reminded us of the Bates Motel! The staff were friendly but the breakfast was dire! Breakfast is served in dour surroundings and in itself is unimaginative and was the poorest continental breakfast (by a considerable distance) we had in our nine hotel pan european trip. At a 125 euro per night tariff, I really expected better quality.