Italy by car: ACCOMMODATION

In the summer of this year, we traditionally set out with my girlfriend on our trip to Italy by car. Besides preparing for the journey, when we plan where we’ll go, how much we’ll spend and how long we’ll stay somewhere, an important aspect comes into play, and that’s accommodation.

This year we went to many places; we’ll write an article about this trip soon and add a link to this article as well. As places and towns to stay overnight, this time we chose the following:

Vineyard near Marano di Valpolicella, Verona

Le Bignele accommodation, vineyard near Marano di Valpolicella

Nearby cities: Verona (30 minutes by car), Garda (40 minutes by car).

Rating: 9 out of 10, ideal for a short stop.

This picturesque place is on the top of a small hill; a narrow road leads there, but nothing extreme, and even with my larger car I passed without any problems. The advantage of the location is absolute peace, quiet, and a perfect view. Judge for yourself from our photos below.

Part of this accommodation is great parking, where you have a wide spot for any car and parking is completely free. You will also find free Wi-Fi, air conditioning, a perfect view from the room and I must not forget the outdoor seating with a wine cellar next to you. The rooms were beautiful, including a spacious bathroom and a comfortable bed.

We tasted the local wine; you get the chance to taste as many wines as you want before buying, and then it’s up to you whether you just have a glass or buy a whole bottle. The price was favourable, a glass was around 4-5€.

It is important to mention that this accommodation does not have a restaurant and does not cook, however it offers breakfast, which is sufficient but not lavish. For one or two nights it’s more than enough. On the other hand, the accommodation will provide you with various small “tapas” in the form of a cold platter with local ingredients. We had a cold platter with ham, local cheeses and their homemade jam. It was quite generous and cost about 15€.

In our case, as we drove here all the way from the Czech Republic and wanted to have at least some dinner, the accommodation offers a QR code for local businesses that provide food delivery. Of course we had to try pizza, which was excellent. But you can also choose from various burgers and meats. On the other hand, we didn’t go to Italy to taste burgers 🙂

If you drive according to navigation, when you enter into Waze Le Bignele Veneto, you will find it right away. The accommodation led us through three different points in the navigation, but that’s unnecessarily complicated; you can go directly and you will always get the same route.

Siena

Hotel Santa Caterina, Siena

Nearby cities: San Gimignano (45 minutes by car), Florence (75 minutes by car), Pisa (2 hours by car)

Rating: 8 out of 10, perfect location for a walk in Siena’s centre, fantastic breakfasts, but you need to be cautious with parking.

We expected a lot from this accommodation, as it offers a perfect location, a favourable price and has its own parking.

From our point of view, it really is a perfect place to stay at a favourable price, but we encountered one small, yet solvable, problem. The hotel’s parking is divided into two parts. One is a small car park with an extremely narrow entrance between two houses, and at the end of the entrance there is a 90° turn that leads to this small car park. The second car park has an entrance from the other side of the street and you enter through a gate onto a wider road, the parking spaces are then on a larger grassy area.

We didn’t know this when booking, and the hotel does not ask you in advance how big your car is, and they usually give vehicles priority to the small car park first and only then to the large one. In our case, this meant that on the day of our arrival there was no spot in the large car park and I couldn’t fit into the small car park precisely because of the narrow entrance and the subsequent 90° turn (if you have a vehicle like a Mini Cooper, Fiat 500, Škoda Fabia, etc., you’ll be fine). However, we eventually arranged with the hotel staff to park for one day on the street next to the hotel, which is prohibited and carries a high fine, and on the second day we reparked to an available larger parking spot with entrance through the gate.

Because of this inconvenience we didn’t have to pay for parking, but otherwise parking here costs 15€ per night. If you are driving and have a larger car, inform the hotel staff in advance via a message on Booking and insist that you want to park in the larger area.

As for breakfast, it is really great here and the selection is large. On the one hand, the hotel’s premises are beautiful and fit nicely into the atmosphere of the city of Siena, and you can choose from savory to sweet breakfast in the form of a buffet. If you are planning to leave early the next morning and don’t want to miss breakfast, then you can ask the staff to prepare breakfast up to one hour earlier than usual (breakfast is normally from 8:00). I haven’t encountered this anywhere else so far and it was a great benefit.

The hotel’s location is perfect, as you are about a 5-minute walk from the old centre of Siena. The surroundings are quiet with little vehicle traffic. If it weren’t for the small parking issue, I’d have nothing to criticize, perhaps only the small number of cafes and restaurants in the area, but that can be solved by walking to the historic part of Siena and having, for example, a sweet Cornetto and coffee in the square.

The rooms are in the style of Siena’s old centre, most of the furniture is dark wood and it really looks very good. The bathroom is also spacious and I have nothing to criticize in this regard.

You can read more about Siena itself HERE 🍋

Rimini

Hotel Raffaello, Bellaria-Igea Marina near Rimini

Nearby cities: Rimini (20 minutes by car), San Marino (45 minutes by car), Ravenna (50 minutes by car), Bologna (1.5 hours by car)

Rating: 6 out of 10, suitable for those who seek a beach with a sunbed and want to be close to the sea. But you need to pay extra for a better room.

If you’re tempted by a beach with a rented sunbed and umbrella, but want to be a bit away from the crowd in Rimini, Hotel Raffaello can be your choice. Hotel Raffaello has private parking, which is free in the hotel grounds. The entrance is sufficiently large and the hotel looks really nice from the outside. The staff here are nice, but don’t speak English very well. They’ll help you with standard requests, but don’t expect any extensive discussion.

The room layout was a disappointment, as the standard rooms have a bathroom so small that the showerhead is directly above the toilet. There is no shower enclosure, curtain or door. The bathroom is simply that small and really cramped. In the hotel Raffaello’s defense, you can see it in the photos, but we didn’t notice.

The hotel also offers a “private beach.” This “private beach” is very close to the hotel, about a 2-minute walk, but it is not private in the sense that you would have only guests from this hotel there, but only a section of beach with umbrellas that is “designated” for guests of this hotel. Even so, you have to pay on this beach to rent an umbrella with a sunbed at a price of 15-25€ per day. Alternatively, you can go further to another beach, but prices are more or less the same. Honestly, I didn’t quite understand what was meant here by “private beach,” since people who are not staying at this hotel can also go to this beach, but want to rent a sunbed there.

We found that this type of holiday isn’t for us. So Veronika and I just quickly took a dip in the sea, concluded that we didn’t want to stay here any longer and cancelled the accommodation. By the way, if you plan to just go into the sea and don’t want a sunbed, I recommend going from the hotel already ready to jump straight into the sea. If you leave even a small bag on one of the beaches, the local beach staff will try to throw you out or force you to pay for a sunbed – even if you won’t need it and have your bag in front of the sunbeds and won’t be in anyone’s way.

I was thinking about whether to include this accommodation here, since we ultimately didn’t stay overnight and for the first time cancelled the accommodation at the moment we arrived there. However, canceling the accommodation was by no means due to the condition of the hotel or the staff; after all, it was a pleasant and really very nice hotel (apart from the unusual bathroom), the parking was great and the location good with a number of shops and restaurants, but rather we found that lying surrounded by sunbeds is not for us.

If that appeals to you, I can recommend this hotel, but definitely pay extra at least for a Superior room, where you already have a normal bathroom and don’t have to shower over the toilet. We didn’t have the opportunity to try breakfast here, so I personally can’t evaluate it, but from reviews it seems that breakfasts here are excellent. Hotel Raffaello also offers a lovely outdoor seating area, which you will definitely appreciate in the evening. If you like to travel to the sea to Rimini, I would definitely give this hotel a chance, but pay extra for a Superior or Deluxe room.

Sirmione

Sirmione is close to our hearts and we looked forward to it the whole holiday. It’s so great here that Veronika and I came back; we were here last year too and we’re planning it again next year.

Hotel Mavino

Nearby cities: Bardolino (30 minutes by car), Garda (35 minutes by car), Malcesine (75 minutes by car), Limone Sul Garda (1.5 hours by car)

Rating: 9.5 out of 10, suitable for those who want to be in the historic part of Sirmione right in the heart of the action. There is also the option of a view of Lago di Garda directly from the room.

A separate article about Sirmione, what to visit, where to eat and where to go, we have it here.

Hotel Mavino was our salvation when we were leaving from Rimini. The staff speak perfect English, they are very helpful and over the phone we sorted moving the reservation one day earlier. The location of Hotel Mavino is clearly its absolute advantage, as you are accommodated right in the centre of the historic part of Sirmione. You step out of the hotel door and you’re right where you want to be in Sirmione – half a minute from Castello Scaligero di Sirmione, a few minutes’ walk from Jamaica Beach or the thermal baths. Sirmione really offers a lot and we’ll write it up in a separate article.

Parking at Hotel Mavino is arranged through GrifoParking. You inform Hotel Mavino via a message on Booking.com that you will arrive by car and need parking. The hotel staff will prepare a PDF for you, which they will send you on Whatsapp (or in a message on Booking.com or by email) and make a reservation for you at GrifoParking. This parking offers a transfer from the car park to the hotel for free and likewise back at check-out, as it’s a bit far to walk from the hotel with suitcases, almost 1 kilometre. This transfer runs at regular intervals of a few minutes and you ride in a typical “golf cart.” We arrived sometime after ten in the evening and the transfer was still possible.

There’s a reason for this golf cart, if you don’t choose Hotel Mavino and rather pick something else in the centre of Sirmione with parking inside the centre, then be prepared for extremely narrow alleys and slow moves among crowds of tourists (if you arrive any time during the day when the sun is shining). Some hotels have parking on the street in the centre of Sirmione and I do not recommend that in itself; during the day there are really a lot of tourists in the centre of Sirmione.

GrifoParking through Hotel Mavino will solve this for you, you park before the entrance to the centre, where there are no crowds. On entry and exit you just show the QR code from the PDF that Hotel Mavino prepares for you, the gate opens and you can choose from many spots in this guarded car park where tourists do not walk. There really are plenty of parking spaces here, most people park right at the beginning, but if you drive a bit further, you can park with a view of Lago di Garda and you’ll have dozens of spots to choose from.

As for breakfast, they were sufficiently rich. The spaces for breakfast are smaller, but the offer is extensive. From eggs with bacon to various hams, cheeses, sweet pastries and a bit of fruit.

You can choose between two types of rooms – city view or lake view. In nothing else do they differ much. Since we arrived a day earlier, we had the chance to try both a Standard room and a Superior. The primary visible difference really was “only” the view. In one we had a view of the streets of Sirmione and in the other a view of Lago Di Garda. Both types of rooms have a balcony where you can sit in the evening, and air conditioning if needed. The bathroom or type of bed did not differ. I can recommend both kinds; it depends on what you prefer. The rooms are sufficiently spacious and quiet.

Hotel Mavino also offers a small outdoor seating area, or by the reception, where you have the option to order from a large selection of drinks. We tried the red wine and it was great. The price was very similar to what it would be in a regular restaurant, around 4€ per glass.

There is an amazing spectacle in Sirmione and we wrote a whole article about this divine town HERE 🍋

Limone sul Garda

Aria Life Hotel

Nearby cities: Riva del Garda (15 minutes by car), Malcesine (35 minutes by car, but with the use of the ferry), Sirmione (1.5 hours by car)

Hotel rating: 7 out of 10, a good hotel with all facilities for an active couple

Our last stop was in Limone Sul Garda at the Aria Life Hotel. This hotel offers great activities for an active couple. Hotels in this location outside the main centre are located on a hill, and therefore be prepared that after a longer walk through the town of Limone sul Garda, you will still have to climb a steep hill to the hotel for a while. It’s nothing extreme, but compared to the previous locations it’s certainly a noticeable difference.

The hotel offers free parking in its outdoor grounds, or you can park in a covered garage for a fee. Since in our case there was no risk of hail, there was no reason to pay extra for parking in a covered garage and so we parked outside. The outdoor parking is reserved for hotel guests and can’t be booked, so I had a backup plan of a reservation for covered parking, as reservations can be made there, and I then cancelled it for free on site. The entrance and exit to the parking spot are sufficiently wide and the parking spaces large.

An advantage of the Aria Life Hotel compared to the other mentioned hotels is their own pool, which is available free of charge to hotel guests. During our stay, however, the pool was completely full of guests and there weren’t many places for additional interested people. Furthermore, in the hotel you will find a gym, spa and wellness and 2 restaurants.

We especially used the restaurant in the evening, when we came back tired from walking around the town and didn’t feel like going down and up the hill to the hotel again. The restaurant offers great pizza at an affordable price, the price is around 7-8€, or pasta or meat, but that was usually significantly more expensive.

What for me was the clear highlight of this accommodation was the view of the mountains and the breakfast. It’s evident here that this is already a 4* hotel and you have a great variety of food to choose from – From eggs to savory pastries, meat, sweets, fruit, vegetables or yogurts, cereals and more. Combined with perfect views of Lake Garda and the mountains around you, it really has a great atmosphere. After all, you can enjoy the view even when you are swimming in the pool.

We were accommodated in a standard room and these are equipped rather simply. It’s a bit of a contrast to the hotel’s overall feel, but it’s nothing terrible and is perfectly sufficient for a regular overnight stay.

The only small minus of this hotel is the omnipresent smell of chlorine. I would guess that due to the extensive facilities of this hotel – Pool, wellness, spa, fitness – this is to be expected.

Apart from the experience in Rimini, which was primarily caused by the type of holiday we prefer, we recommend all these hotels if you plan to go to Italy by car. All these accommodations have great parking solutions and the price / performance ratio is excellent for all of them. In addition, this article is compiled in the same way we had this road trip. Be inspired by us and set out on a trip to Italy yourself, these places are definitely worth visiting.

If you’re planning further stops in Italy, we also have a separate guide to what to see in Bologna.

You can find the whole Italy section here.