My friend and I have just returned from visiting Rome for the first time and I dare say it could be the last.
Having paid £160 for 3 nights in a twin room we weren't expecting too much and boy were we right !!
We arrived at the San Giusto hotel at 1.00pm exhausted and very anxious to get checked into our room. We were greeted with a luke warm reception (not even a hello, welkommen or a Bonjour) only to discover that we had been allocated a double room, as opposed to the twin room we had booked and paid for, well in advance. After going back to the reception and explaining this, we were begrudgingly given a twin room on the 3rd floor. We had to carry our own cases up two flights of stairs to the first floor where the lift was located (a bizarre set up if ever I saw one) and went up to the room. Inside, it did indeed have twin beds but these were seperated off by a filthy wall partition accompanied by damp peeling wallpaper and almost threadbare carpets. The room was very dark and there was also an unbearable smell lurking everywhere in the hotel. We lugged our cases back to the reception and explained that the room was totally unacceptable. We were then allocated another room on the 2nd floor (up we went again with our cases) to find that we had been given another double room. We trudged back to the recepion for the third time and after looking at 4 different rooms in total, we decided to stick with the last one as it seemed to be the best kept out of the lot and even that wasn't great but we hoped to be spending as little time in the room/hotel as possible. The bathroom was small but clean, as was the bed linen. The air conditioning was a very dated unit on the wall which did eventually work but was programmed not to go below 20 degrees. The wallpaper was peeling and the carpet looked as though it had been fitted by a partially sighted donkey ! Deciding to leave the room within the first half an hour, we went and explored the area around the hotel. What an absolute s....hole, nothing but rubbish strewn streets and buildings and shops full of grafitti. There were a few small cafe's dotted about and a supermarket round the side of the hotel which actually seemed ok. Bologna metro station was about 50 metres away which was handy - but it was definitely a badly cared for area. During our 3 day stay we visited lots of the main sights (apart from St Peters and the Sistene chapel which was not open on Sundays) and endured one poor meal after the other. We tried eating in lots of different areas but found nothing that actually tasted traditional/authentic or even nice, for that matter. I expected to be sampling delicious breads, cheeses and olives etc but found nothing of the sort. The closest thing we got to this was a basket of dry stale bread with one of the meals. I even tried the italian antipasti which was a plate containing a cheese slice, 2 dried up slices of salami and only 2 olives on that weren't even pitted ! We found the ice creams to be ok but again, nothing like I expected considering we were in Italy. Feeling very disapponted with the hotel, the food and even the italians (who appeared impatient and often rude) we prepared for our departure home.

The night before we left, we asked the attendant on reception at San Giusto if he would be kind enough to book us a taxi to Ciampino airport early the following morning. He agreed and said that as we needed to be at the airport for 8.00am (and that the journey would take no longer than 25 minutes) a pick up of 7.30am would be sufficient and that we could have breakfast in the restaurant room at 7am before the taxi arrived. We were happy enough with this and actually felt quite pleased that at least one member of the hotel had succeeded in being helpful - HOW WRONG WE WERE !!!

We were up and out of our room at 7.00am on the dot and arrived in reception to hand our keys in and attempt the breakfast that we had missed the previous 2 days. It was a different attendant on reception and when we explained that we were going for breakfast like they suggested, the attendant told us that breakfast was not available until 7.30am on Sundays (which completely contradicted the other attendant from the night before). Feeling frustrated after debating with the attendant what we had been previously told, we had no choice but to sit and wait the remaining 30 minutes until 7.30am for the taxi (without breakfast). Of course, 30 minutes came and went and when it reached 7.40am we asked the attendant to call the taxi firm and check it's whereabouts. The attendant did this and discovered that no such taxi had even been booked by the previous attendant. Confused, we asked what was going on and the attendant assured us that he had now booked one and that it would arrive within 15 minutes. At this point we decided to quickly go up to the breakfast room just for a drink and a roll. We went in for the first time to find the set up of the room to be quite inviting and saw that a lady was filling up the juice containers, but again, no acknowledgement or greeting. We looked along the food table where there was a choice of only 2 pastries (both sweet), a plate of salami, ham and a plate of cheese slices next to a basket of unhealthy looking boiled eggs. Giving the small selection of food a miss, we picked up a glass for some juice to discover that they were absolutely filthy. We went through 6 different glasses until we found one that looked like it had actually been washed, quickly had some juice and hurried back to the reception. With the taxi still on its way (by now it's 7.55am) and leaving our cases in reception, we decided to walk to the end of the road to the cash machines. We were back within 5 minutes and the reception attendant said he had cancelled our taxi. Absolutely furious, we asked why and he replied "how am I supposed to know where you were going, if you are not here when the taxi arrives then we have to pay 50 euros" I then said "you can see our suitcases are here, we only went to the bank for a few minutes" and he just ignorantly shrugged his shoulders. We were absolutey furious, but I decided that after staying in a complete dump, experiencing so many problems and being treated terribly, I knew standing there shouting and arguing would get us nowhere, so we had to grit our teeth and silently admit defeat. We snatched our cases and stomped out of the hotel mumbling obscenities along the way. We hurried towards the metro station in fear of missing our flight.

However, despite the problems we had and the overall disappointment with the food and hotel, we were actually still glad we visited Rome. The sights were enjoyabe and the weather was gloriously hot. But as for staying in this pathetic apology for a 3 star hotel - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!!