I was disappointed in this pensione. My single room (No 22) had a very very slim twin-sized bed; the room itself was barely twice the width of the bed, so difficult to manoeuvre around the space. I would describe the furniture in the room as shabby rather than antique. (I have visited Italy twice a year for over a decade; this is almost the smallest room I have ever had in a hotel.)
I quickly discovered a leak in the bathroom; each evening when I returned to the room there was a large slippery pool of water all over the bathroom floor; the staff offered to move me the first night, but said I would have to move back after one night as the hotel was then fully booked. There seemed little point, therefore, in moving so each evening when I returned to the hotel I had to go to the front desk and request half a dozen towels and bath mats to mop up the water. They didn’t seem to be making any effort to repair the leak.
Only one of the three little bulbs over the bathroom mirror functioned. (There was no other source of light in the bathroom.) I assumed the maids would replace them but when they did not, I removed the dead bulbs myself and left them on the bed, indicating that new ones were wanted. When I returned that evening, the chamber maids had taken the dead bulbs and put them back in their sockets above the mirror! I was forced to remove them again and take them to the front desk to ask for new light bulbs.
Neither the plug in the basin, nor that in the bath functioned.
The breakfast buffet is pretty standard fare. You’ll only get ‘real’ coffee if you specifically ask for it. Otherwise they bring a watery undrinkable coffee-like beverage. There was almost no fresh fruit on offer; at the first breakfast the fruit bowl held some half rotten apples and four kiwi fruit. I stayed for 4 breakfasts, eating a kiwi fruit each morning, leaving nothing on the last day except the rotten apples. The fruit bowl was never replenished.
If you are planning to take taxis to and from Vespucci airport then the location is not too bad. If you plan to take the 5 euro airport shuttle bus into town, then the hotel is a 10 euro taxi ride from SMN.
There are some excellent and very reasonably priced restaurants in the area (Casalinga, Mangiatoia) but otherwise a hotel on the other side of the river might be more convenient.
The staff were pleasant if useless and a bit feckless.
I am sorry to say that I will not being staying here again.
- Annalena Hotel Florence
