| From: MK, United Kingdom |
| Date of Stay: June, 2008 |
| The hotel is in an ideal location for a short stay in Florence. Everything is in easy walking distance and we found the room to be clean and comfortable. Staff were friendly and breakfast was plentiful. Having read previous reviews, we had advance warning that the entrance to the hotel might be difficult to find. Better signposting near the main door on the ground floor would help. The main drawback was the lack of a proper shower space in the tiny bathroom. Everything was crammed in with little room to hang clothes or towels - not too much of an issue for a couple of days' sightseeing but a minus point for longer stays. On the whole, we had a very enjoyable time. |
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| From: Fanancy Anzalone, USA |
| Date of Stay: December, 2007 |
| I have stayed here several times and fell like part of the family. They have exceeded my expectations each and every time. |
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| From: DC, USA |
| Date of Stay: November, 2007 |
| I traveled with a friend & we stayed in a 2 twin bed size room. The beds were filled with bugs - we both got rashes even though we were clothed head-to-toe. The bathroom was dirty & there was black hair on the bathroom floor. The shower we had in our room was much worse than the picture showed on the site. The toilet floor was part of the shower floor. If you sat on the toilet, your feet were 3/4 over the shower area. I took pictures of the bathroom because I knew that nobody would believe our story of how bad this bathroom was. This coming from a well traveled person who's been all over the world & been in all kinds of conditions. |
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| From: Robert Colasacco, USA |
| Date of Stay: November, 2007 |
| The Staff was both very professional and very friendly and helpful. The only complaint I have is the breakfast, it was not of very good quality. |
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| From: EB, Spain |
| Date of Stay: October, 2007 |
| Excelent situation, good breakfast, spacious room, clean,the only bad thing: the shower and small bathroom |
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| From: Laurie Welsh, USA |
| Date of Stay: September, 2007 |
| Location is this hotel's strongest attribute. Our room faced right onto Repubblica Square, very nice. The room was also quite large, another plus. When we arrived we met a girl named, Manuela. She is great! She immediately helped us with restaurant recommendations and tour booking/advice. She called the museums for us as well. Unfortunately, I hardly slept that night, not because of the square below, but because of the noisiness inside the hotel. The rest of our stay we used earplugs to sleep. As I said before the room was spacious, but the bathroom...a different story completely. Granted I wasn't expecting the Ritz by any means, but sharing a corner with your toilet, bidet and shower? That was a bit much. Because please keep in mind, there is no actual "shower." You get a shower head and a drain in a corner about 6 inches away from the toilet and bidet with nothing more than a dirty shower curtain to separate them all. Weird to say the least. Manuela wasn't there the following days and that was a pity. The other two gentlemen weren't nearly as friendly or helpful. So to wrap it up, great hotel if you're going for nothing more than the location, but in Florence everything is so close its hard not to have a great location. I would spring for a place with a bathroom a little bigger than your kitchen pantry, but hey, that's just me. ;) |
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| From: Ivan Savvine, USA |
| Date of Stay: July, 2007 |
| beautiful location and courteous staff |
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| From: Wojciech Wiza, Poland |
| Date of Stay: April, 2007 |
| The only problem is that the hotel is in the middle of the most crowded place in Florence - between Cathedral and Ponte Vecchio. People sing, laugh all the night (esp. at Saturday). But when you take a look from the window or walk around and breath the atmosphere of Florence this problem goes away. The most important advantage: employees are very friendly and helpful. Thank you. BTW. it is not too easy to reach the hotel - when you're first time there it is not obvious that you should enter the lift and go to the 4th floor :) - no clear indicators. |
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| From: KH, Australia |
| Date of Stay: September, 2006 |
| Location was very good and room was large and reasonably quiet. Staff were very helpful. Breakfast room was tiny and food was not that great. Having the shower wet the whole bathroom made things slippery. |
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| From: CP, Spain |
| Date of Stay: September, 2006 |
| El hotel es muy antiguo y la reforma que han llevado a cabo es muy escasa. El cuarto de baño es muy antiguo (la ducha es el suelo de todo el cuarto de baño, con lo que cada vez que te duchas se moja el inodoro, el papel higiénico si no le quitas, el lavabo...quedándo siempre mojado todo el suelo del cuarto de baño). Lo único bueno es la localización del hotel, que está en pleno centro. |
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| From: Trigby Perea, USA |
| Date of Stay: September, 2006 |
| We found this place very easily from the train station. (It was about a 10 minute walk.) It is right on a large square and very conveniently located for site seeing. Unfortunately the toilet that when you flushed it, leaked water from the bowl onto the floor and the jack hammering that was in the next room over that started Saturday morning at 8:00AM, were both major detractors. This room was affordable, so I wasn't expecting a palace, but the bathroom that doubled as a shower, and the moderately disinterested staff made this the kind of place I'd only suggest if saving money was your only concern. |
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| From: Thomas Wilpert, Germany |
| Date of Stay: September, 2006 |
| We arrived in Fierenze by car. Although the place of the hotel Olimpia was indicated in map, it was very difficult to get there due to many, many one-way streets, road works, bus-only lanes and pedestrian areas. A map with an indicated access way to the hotel would be fine. The road signs indicating the way the the hotel was in our case not very helpful, because of incompleteness. |
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| From: Nishad Mehta, USA |
| Date of Stay: August, 2006 |
| The manager was nice, but there was another person who checked us in and he knew Nothing about service!!! Kept talking on the phone to a friend about casual chit-chat while we waited tired and hungry to be checked in! Very unfriendly and unhelpful, not willing to go an ounce over bare necessary. Location was Great. Room was ok, the bathrooms were HORRIBLE!! Mould on the bathroom tiles! Makeshift shower!Just a terrible bathroom. I thought this was a 3 star hotel! Rest of the staff was nice, but when we checked in it was a disaster and that stays with you. I would definitely pick another hotel next time I'm there. This was the worst hotel experience of the major cities we stayed in Italy. |
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| From: Tom Glickman, USA |
| Date of Stay: July, 2006 |
| We loved our stay at the Olimpia. As others have said, the location just can't be beat. 5 minutes walk to just about every major attraction in town. We were in room #7 - no difficulty with noise at night, but perhaps that's because our room didn't face directly out onto the Piazza de la Repubblica. Big room, yes the bathroom was a little strange as others have mentioned, but it worked out just fine. Decent breakfast, **incredibly** helpful staff - they were OUTSTANDING!!. The only real struggle we had was getting to the hotel by car. Having a car in Florence is a real liability - would NOT recommend it! The parking garage the Olimpia works with is very helpful (they came and picked us up when we got stranded in the vast maze of 1-way streets and bus-only lanes) but parking is expensive (24 euro per night). Would absolutely stay here again - with such a courteous, professional staff, comfortable rooms, and again, outstanding location, what more can you ask for? |
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| From: Yuliya Livson, USA |
| Date of Stay: June, 2006 |
| Cannot beat the location. The bathroom was a bit unusual but the the location is unbelivable, specially for the price. |
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| From: BT, Germany |
| Date of Stay: June, 2006 |
| The bathroom was very small and whenever you had a shower, the floor was flooded and you had to go through water. Staff was friendly. The hotel is vrey hard to find if you dare entering Florence by car. We needed 1 hour! Actually you are not allowed to drive on Piazza della Repubblicca. It should be a notice in the hotel's description that for a short time (unloading your luggage) you may park in front of the hotel. The garage is not at the hotel, the car is taken away by a hotel's employee to a public garage about 20 minutes away! |
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| From: Gavin Higgins, United Kingdom |
| Date of Stay: June, 2006 |
| Olympia was exactly what we were prepared for. It remonded me of what italian hotels used to be like in the 60's and 70's. A little bit tired, not very quiet but cheap and cheerful. The location was excellent making it very easy to take very little with us during our tours of Florence. You were never more than 5-10 mins walk from the hotel. The building next door to the Olimpia was being renovated when we were there so we were woken each morning at 8am by an almost comedy amount of noise but we didn't mind. We were too eager to explore Florence to let this spoil our stay. Overall, i would say its the best value hotel for location vs price. Anything else in the centre would be from €180+ a night. V. happy. |
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| From: Kristen Wilkinson, USA |
| Date of Stay: June, 2006 |
| We enjoyed our stay at this hotel. Great location!! One complaint...on a rainy afternoon we picked up lunch to go and brought it back to the hotel. The MANAGER would not let us eat our lunch at the tables used for the breakfast. Other than the manager, the staff was very kind and helpful. |
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| From: SD, France |
| Date of Stay: May, 2006 |
| Localisation idéale, plein centre, ancien Forum Romain, ancien quartier juif du Moyen age jusqu'en 1886. Personnel accueillant,compétent et à l'écoute. Les chambres sans "vues" sont très silencieuses car elles ne donnent pas sur la place. Petit déjeuné libre service dans salle qui donne sur la place de la République. Seule fausse note : le garage n'est pas un parking de l'hotel, mais un service payant qui coute 96 euro pour 4 jours en plus du prix des chambres. La douche n' a pas de pédiluve et se trouve au milieu de la salle de bain wc, cela incite a rester moins longtemps et il y a de l'eau partout. L hotel donne plus l impression d etre dans un immeuble avec appartement particulier qu' un hotel impersonnel. Les Florentins sont des Italiens raffinés, courtois, la civilisation dans ce qu' elle a de meilleur. |
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| From: Iska Bretting, Germany |
| Date of Stay: May, 2006 |
| Very good located small hotel in the heart of Florence. Very friendly and helpfull employees, nice rooms. We stayed there for three nichts and it is ideal for evey sight-seeing - just two minutes by foot. Really recommandable!!!! Better not arrive with car-there are no parking facilities around. The hotel offers in cooperation with a public garage parking service. This is very comfortable, but expensive! And don`t think about-there is no cheaper garage in Florenz. |
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