We booked this hotel in southern Italy for a week. When we arrived, there was a nice young girl on Reception. She was very polite and helpful. Our Rooms were clean and had a lovely view of the sea. There is no lift so had to walk up a couple of flights of steps. The first night, we ate in a Restaurant very close to the hotel and it was ok. The next morning at breakfast, we were shown to a table by a waiter who did not answer our Buongiorno and seemed unhappy. We wondered if he had had some sad news. Breakfast consisted of mainly croissants and cakes, cheese and meat. No bread. Coffee was so strong. The food was a bit stale but it was a sunday so we didn't worry. We ate in the restaurant that evening. Sea Bass and vegetables with minestrone soup for starters and fruit salad for dessert. The minestrone soup was plonked on the table by the miserable waiter. It was mainly pasta with some veg and little liquid. I tried it but could not eat it. No taste and far too stodgy. Dinner was delivered. I didn't realise the fish would be whole so gave it to my husband. But when I tried the vegetables, I could not believe it. Potatoes, Aubergines, peppers. They were refrigerator cold! The potatoes had not been prepared properly. They had big black holes in them with eelworms. Not one of them was any good. The aubergines were stone cold as I said but soggy, so over cooked and the same for the peppers. None of us could eat the vegetables. Then, it was time for dessert. I saw the miserable waiter take a bowl of fruit off of the breakfast bar and jokingly said to our friends, there's our fruit salad. They've taken it to chop up. Well, a couple of minutes later, that bowl was delivered to our table as it was with the same rotten fruit that we didn't eat for breakfast. We wondered if they had something against us as it was so awful and the waiter was so unfriendly. That was the last evening meal we attempted as it was quite expensive and inedible. The rest of the week carried on the same at breakfast with stale cake, croissants, meat and cheese ect., and that bowl of manky fruit, the same fruit and cake every day. The tablecloth was very dirty. We felt we were in a hostile environment. The whole week, we never saw the waiter smile. The hotel boasts 3 restaurants. We only found one. The hotel boasts of a rooftop terrace. Never found it. The hotel boasts of a short cut to the beach. We walked down to the underground passageway to the beach but we didn't have any wellies. It was full of water and mosquitos and we were not able to walk through it. The beach, we visited by car and is a nice beach but a bit of a difficult drive round to it. The hotel is noisy because of the road noise at night and the trains. The double glazing does not work. The Air Conditioning is noisy. The gardens and swimming pool can not be faulted. A beautiful setting, lovely place to sit. Just one problem though, we are non smokers and there was always a strong smell of cigarettes. Mainly in the conservatory area where a lady sat nearly all the time chain smoking. She never looked up when we walked through, totally ignored us, staring at a paper on the table. There were no smoking signs in the conservatory but she took no notice of them and it was an awfully strong smell, we were not able to make use of the conservatory when it became windy some days and had to sit in our rooms. Sometimes, if we had our bedroom window open, the smell would work its way up and through the windows. We soon learnt to keep them shut. The young man and young lady on Reception were very friendly, very helpful and always had a smile on their faces. We settled our bill the evening before we left as we hoped to leave early the next day. We paid for the awful meal from the sunday before. The next morning, we packed up our car and as we were driving off, there was a banging on the back window. When we stopped, it was the lady that smoked all the time. She said to us in English, we had to settle our bill. We told her, we had done it the night before. She had not spoken to us before that and we presumed she could not speak English. We could not speak Italian so we only spoke a little, Good Day, good Evening ect., Then we left. With a sigh of relief, that we would never return. We have never stayed in a hotel before where we felt we were unwanted, we felt that they were doing things on purpose to make us leave. The photos of this hotel, are brilliantly produced, making it a desirable place to stay. I checked on many sites where it is advertised and read lots of reviews. I find it hard to believe the positive reviews having stayed in many hotels in Italy.…