Ah, the Hotel Rosa sul Mare in Siracusa, Sicily… Advertised as having “charming apartments, situated on the most beautiful hillside of the Plemmirio nature park and sea reserve, with cliffs of white rock and flowered terraces gently sloping down to the Ionian Sea”, the Rosa sul Mare offers “…an oasis of scents and colours from the typical Mediterranean vegetation, with panoramic views on a sea where dolphins usually pass through and a coastline maintaining the ecosystem.” Whatever that means!

What a lovely description – although it fails to mention that the hillside backs on to a particularly shoddy warren of residential roads and dirt tracks, surrounded not by a lush nature reserve but by acres of graffitied derelict buildings and wasteland, most of which are covered in litter and swarming with flies.

As for the apartments themselves, they’re charming enough in a bog-standard Euro-condominium kind of way… but not for the reception staff on site. On arrival at 8pm, in the dark, exhausted after a three hour drive from the airport, our first greeting from the surly owner was an instruction that if we wanted to park on-site, we would have to pay €10 per day for the privilege.

On reaching our apartment, before any introduction to the room amenities, we were grilled on the subject of breakfast, on offer at €10 per person per day. On reviewing the breakfast which had clearly been laid out much earlier in the day (a couple of dismal looking nectarines, a 1-serving box of cornflakes and a yoghurt pot) we declined. We were then told that, in that case, we could not use the kitchen or its facilities.The only item we were allowed to use was the fridge, but we were not to touch any cutlery or crockery. And we were warned that if we dared to disobey, a €35 penalty would be added to our bill.

By this time, we’d been at the hotel about ten minutes and had received nothing but grief. But there was more to come…

The next morning, fancying a swim and a spot of relaxation in the sun, we located the pool and sundeck. However, before we could use the facilities, we were warned that we would have to pay €100 for the privilege during our week’s stay. This explained why, despite the hotel being full, both pool and deck were deserted… and set to stay that way for the whole of our stay.

It became quickly apparent that there was absolutely no atmosphere, no feeling of community, no vibe at this supposedly ‘hip’ hotel. With so many restrictions, boundaries and hidden charges, most guests did what we did – escape every morning to private beaches in more salubrious areas, returning only to kill the flies in the room and go to sleep.

Unless visitors are keen long-distance walkers with a penchant for trekking across landfill municipal dumps and arid insect-infested wastelands, a sealed car is a must for this area. But beware, book your car in the UK before you leave, as the nearest rental operation is at Catania airport, an hour or more’s drive away from the Rosa Sul Council Tip…

Saddled with temperamental air conditioning that failed on a daily basis, the absence of new towels or bed linen (despite promises to the contrary) and a toilet system that proved incapable of dealing with the not-unreasonable challenge of toilet paper (!), we sat in the darkness of our terrace (thankfully included in the price of accommodation), waiting an eternity for the sun to come round to our benighted side of the hotel. Robbed of the will to live and risking life and limb on the rusted ‘death-trap’ sun loungers, we considered our options. Behind our improvised sight barrier of towels (draped across the open balcony front to prevent the staff and various family members wandering by and staring as they stood around chatting at the tops of their voices), we took the decision after 4 interminable days to move on to a proper 4-star hotel, notwithstanding the fact that we had paid for 7 days of this dismal accommodation in advance. And strangely, when we left, the staff seemed unsurprised… I suspect we were not the first to jump ship.

In summary, this hotel is predicated on a series of half-truths, untruths and frankly misleading omissions. It appears to exist solely as a means for the owner to extort additional rent from his punters and I would urge any self-respecting traveller with taste, discernment and any expectation of a welcoming relaxing break to avoid it at all costs.