To call this a 4 star hotel was an insult. The hotel was ran down, dark and the rooms where old, and bath rooms had visual signs of fungus, and smelled accordingly. The staff was nice but had a a hopeless task in keeping a good spirit up among the guests. Would not ever stay there again if it was the cheepest place in Sarnico.

Mikal.

Me and my family booked this hotel simply because of the price! We managed to book 6 nights for around £340. We read the other reviews before we went and they put us off slightly, however we were pleasantly suprised. We had a very warm welcome from the people running the hotel (a husband and wife), although they did not speak a word of english. We had a family room based on 4 people sharing. It was big with a king size bed and 2 singles. We had a seperate room with two double wardrobes and a spacious bathroom. Everywhere was exceptionally clean, the room was cleaned daily with new linens and towels. The shower was also hot and powerful. The only down sides to this hotel was that the air conditioning was pretty useless, it is nearer a 3 star rather than a 4 star and there was quite a lot of road noise, other than that there really wasnt anything alse to complain about. It is in a great location, right in the heart of Sarnico with plenty of bars and restaurants on the doorstep.

Even if this "hotel" was free it would still be a seriously bad value. The first clues as to how unbelievably wretched it is lie in the fact that (a) the location map on its own website is wildly inaccurate (unfortunately we persevered for 2/3 hours and finally located the "hotel" - Big Mistake!), (b) the photographs are totally misleading (c) you can't access the "hotel" by car - you've to park up quite a distance away, walk back to the "hotel", plead with the (mature) inexplicably hostile, non-English speaking Receptionist for a special card to access the pedestrianised area, walk back to your car again, attempt to negotiate your car back through the labyrinthe of one way streets to the "hotel" and then unpack your luggage while the same hostile Receptionist indicates to you in sign language - and monitors you personally - that you've 5 minutes max to unload your luggage, check in, bring your luggage up yo your room and get back to your car and drive it off to the nearest paying public car park you might just be lucky enough to stumble upon. Actually, that's the best part of this "hotel". The worst parts of the "hotel" are the rooms with two windows, one directly above the 24 hour incredibly noisy main road through Sarnico, the other above a piazza joint (I believe owned by the hotel - it looked tacky enough) with shouting/roaring teenagers all through the night and "air-conditioning" which didn't work - and looked like it hasn't worked since Garibaldi unified Italy. We initially had a dilema - try to sleep in the sauna-like room without the bedlum from outside by keeping the windows closed, or, open the windows and kid ourselves we were getting an occasional 40 winks notwithstanding the mayhem outside. We tried alternating between the two and finally at about one or two in the morning one of my daughters had a brain wave - the four of us dragged our mattresses into the corridor where the reduced noise and heat were almost, but not quite, tolerable. We'd booked a room for my wife, two daughters and myself and , boy, were we glad the two "beds" for the two girls were ultra-basic camp beds - it made dragging the girls' mattresses into the corridor really easy. We'd specifically requested a quiet room with functioning air-conditioning when originally making the booking - we sure were glad we'd done that, what on earth (we wondered bemusedly) would the noisy rooms without any air-conditioning have been like? Breakfast was hilarious - the same ( by now even more so) hostile Receptionist personally supervised whatever anyone took off the buffet tables for breakfast and muttered ominously if more than one of anything was taken. She attempted to herd everyone into one section of one humid breakfast room but bad-humouredly gave up when several of us made a successful escape into the (official) al fresco breakfast area. We were constantly monitored as to the quantity of food we were consuming and attempts by some of us to get her to fix the "orange juice" machine so that we could drink "juice", rather than coloured tap water and/or a chemical compound, were to no avail. Woe betide anyone - regardless of sex, age or nationality - who dared to move anything out of place or leave a teaspoon or a saucer anywhere other than where the Receptionist deemed it should be. There was a (mature) jolly gentleman who finally surfaced and seemed very pleased that most of us were breakfasting al fresco and who did finally fix the "orange juice" machine - seemingly to the annoyance of his female counterpart. When the bread rolls ran out the female Receptionist ultimately went off and returned with about 6/8 rolls which the few guests agreed looked like she'd just purchased from a shop. Everyone grabbed one to be on the safe side but as soon as I went to get myself a coffee the Receptionist came over and berated my wife for taking a 2nd roll (which was actually mine). My wife was finally so annoyed that as soon as I returned with my coffee she insisted we leave the hotel forthwith. When the Receptionist saw us leaving the table - with an uneaten bread roll left on the table - she launched into a comically sinister tirade. When we were checking out of the hotel there was a young, very friendly, English-speaking Receptionist at the desk - but it really was a case of far too little, far too late. To be fair, the jolly gentleman was also very pleasant but, in summary, the best part of this "hotel" is the leaving of it and knowing that one will never have to return there. Don't be fooled by any fictional descriptions or photographs on this "hotel's" website, or on any other website, this has got to be worst hotel ever in the entire universe. But, it takes all sorts, if sleepless nights, unbearably hot and sticky bedrooms, Oliver Twist-like portions of breakfast, no parking and a serial grumpy lady who dislikes hotel guests are your idea of holiday fun - you'll love this place. Good Luck - you'll need it!

What they don't show is the noisy, busy highway that runs between the hotel and the river. The traffic noise and shouting from adjacent piazza go on at all hours. Few of the staff spoke any English, and the manager seemed quite put out that I'm only just learning Italian. Just getting to Sarnico is difficult; no trains run there and only limited bus service.
My room, which had a view of the bank across the piazza, was dusty and stuffy, but there was no sleeping with the window open because of the noise. The ethernet cable they gave me for Internet access, along with a complicated set of ID numbers, didn't work, and the manager couldn't even explain to me how to use the phone. The "double" bed was actually two singles stuck together with a gap between. Shower only--no tub.
I was there to research the countryside for a book. This was a very inconvenient headquarters for such a venture, as the nearest boats are in Iseo and the hiking trails well hidden a half day's walk upriver.