Top Park Bologna, Pianoro

I liked nothing about this hotel. I had to stay a weekend only because a couldnt find anywhere else. I left as soon as possible. Rooms were filthy, food was crappy. Service was slow and poor. The only plus is they have a pool. It smells like chlorine, but it is a pool.

EVERYTHING WAS GOOD: ATMOSPHERE, RESTAURANT, WELCOME AT RECEPTION, SWIMMING-POOL. WELCOME IN OUR ROOM: FRUIT EXTERNAL BAR WITH MUSIC. SMART GARDEN NEAR SWIMMING POOL. SERVICE WAS EXCELLENT. VERY GOOD PRICE FOR SERVICE.

We had the common sense to check out the location on the map beforehand, so it was not such a surprise that the hotel isn't really "minutes away from the centre". Bus 96 comes by often enough and it was always on time, modern and air-conditioned. But it takes about 30 minutes to reach Piazza Cavour. Italians have a siesta in the afternoon, between 14-16 everything is closed. Next time we'd get a hotel in the center of town, so we could go there for a nap during that time. In theory you could walk around the hotel in Pianoro, but we found walking outside the city nerve-wrecking: They have no pedestrian walkways next to the roads. You have to walk on the side of the narrow road with Italians shooting past you in cars and on scooters with a safety margin of about 10 centimeters. The staff of the hotel can handle all the normal hotel check-in, check-out activities just fine in English, but sometimes it feels they can't really explain anything more complicated. You get used to the trains going past the hotel to Florence and Rome pretty quickly, the sound is no louder than the air-conditioner, but our main gripe is with the non-existant sound-proofing. We could hear everything from the neighbouring rooms: Moving around, breathing, snoring... We complained about it, and they said "Sorry, we're all full this week", but in the last few days we didn't have neighbours after all. Maybe we got lucky, or maybe the complaining actually helped. :-) The wireless internet that they advertise was offered by some third party, apparently it wasn't free. You would have to submit your credit card number to be able to reach the internet... At least that's what I gathered from the brochure in the room. The lobby internet point was kind of a joke too, a designed red plastic thing with some kind of computer inside. To use it, you would have to buy a 5 euro phone card. We didn't ask how much time that will get you on the machine, because it looked so poor. A euro will get you 15-30 minutes in a downtown internet cafe. Other than that the room was good and clean, no complaints about the decor here. There's plenty of closet-space and drawers, and with a little rearrangement you can fit a big water bottle in the minibar for cooling. The TV had lots of RAI channels, one German channel, "MTV Italy" and CNN, which apparently counts as "satellite/cable TV". We ate at the hotel restaurant "La Buari" on our first night -- you should try to avoid it if you can. It wasn't bad, but it was nothing to write home about either. And the food and drinks there are about twice as expensive compared to the excellent "trattorias" downtown. The breakfast was OK: Two kinds of juice from a dispenser, mineral water, 4 kinds of cereal, mashed eggs, little sausages, 1 kind of cheese and a couple of kinds of slices of ham. And huge croissants with marmelade and chocolate and whatever. The toast was a bit weird, some processed pre-toasted thing in a plastic wrapping. But one thing that really didn't meet our expectations or any standards was the coffee. Italy is supposed to have good coffee, but these guys use an automatic instant-coffee dispenser. Yuck! The swimming pool and slide were nice and clean, I bet children would appreciate them even more than we did.

The best was Service and cleanliness... we will come back for sure. Bologna it was wonderful!!!