While on a trip to Rome and Tuscany, my family decided to take an impromptu trip to Spoleto. We arrived the opening of the Spoleto festival. The hotel was empty. There were maybe two or three staff members around. If you wanted to use the restaurant or bar, they would find someone to take your order.

While the property itself is nice and we did enjoy the contemporary art, we would not visit this hotel again. We had an incident where a maintenance worker just let himself into our room without knocking. I'm glad I was there, or my wife would have totally freaked out.

I do have to say that the staff was very nice at the front desk. For the most part their English skills were moderately better than my Italian.

We had stayed at this hotel several years ago and enjoyed our stay. It is a bit quirky, with an impressive collection of original contemporary art. That prior positive experience was, however, before we had kids, and this time unfortunately we discovered that the staff is not only NOT family-friendly, it is downright family-hostile. Although we had mentioned the kids when booking the room, they somehow decided to try to charge us more when they saw a (properly-behaved) 10-year-old boy, and suddenly they wanted to have credit-card guarantees and then collectively watched us like hawks, as if children were necessarialy ruffians out to damage their precious property.

All in all it was a very disappointing experience, because the hotel has the potential to be a fine choice for any traveler, including families (nice pool with cool sculpture garden, for example) but they seem to be very focused on the full-of-themselves childless artsy crowd. Based on the fact that the hotel appeared to be about 10% full on a summer weekend, they might want to rethink that strategy.

We didn't actually stay the night at Albarnoz Palace but ate there and visited many of the rooms on a special opening where some of the newly decorated rooms were being inaugurated by the artists themselves. What an amazing hotel! it is just outside the city walls so very convenient walking distance to all the attractions of Spoleto. it is a large very modern structure with sculpture filled garden with pool, incredible hall, spectacular terraces with views of the bridge and rocca and fantastic rooms each with their own art work and distinctive shape. The furniture is all leather Frau and the beds looked very comfortable. Many rooms had terraces. Our meal was also very good. I think this hotel is doing something very important in promoting the work of young international and Italian artists and they are doing it very well.

Juxtapositioned between the walled city and beautiful San Pietro church, the Albornoz Palace Hotel surprised us with its architecture and sweeping views.

Our rooms were individually decorated and signed by the designer. An ultra-modern hotel, it blended and complimented, rather than intruded. Large windows on two sides provided us with breathtaking views of the lighted Tower Bridge and city at night. A rooftop veranda offered lovely vistas of the Umbrian countryside.

The staff was exceptionally courteous; the rooms comfortable and bathrooms extremely well planned (with built-in magnifying mirror beneath kind lighting). Breakfast was elegant and completely appealing.

The room rate (in May) made this hotel a great value!