Castro Pretorio

I don't want to write a review or express a judgement, I'll just limit myself to reporting the facts. I return to this B&B 6 years after the last time and I see that management has changed. One hundred and thirty (130) euros per night. An above-average figure for a B&B. Breakfast is already in your room upon arrival and consists of a couple of packaged snacks, two mini Nutella kits and 4 wholemeal biscuits. Six years ago there was everything good in the common room. I at least had the pleasure of seeing the Camilles again and taking a leap back to the 90s. There is no cutlery or anything to spread the Nutella. With difficulty I was able to use the coffee stirrer to spread it. There are no chairs to sit on, so I ate breakfast in the room standing. Light bulb above the bed not working. App to open the doors of the building and the apartment not working until 3pm. For goodness sake, check-in was indicated at 3pm but if a guest arrives a little earlier (it was 2pm) it is not the best not to be able to enter . After I was given the keys I notice that the key to the street door doesn't work either. But let's get to the strong point: the toilet was unusable. By unusable I mean that the toilet didn't flush, you couldn't get it to work due to how hard the flush button was. Even if I pushed it all the way down, no water came out. I was told I needed to press harder. Now, in almost 40 years of life it has never happened to me that I don't know how to flush a toilet, so evidently it cannot be normal to have to apply a force of 250 Newtons to flush a toilet, a situation in which is not only not easy, but impossible to get the water flowing. I must have tried about fifty times. Nothing, no water ever came out. But for the person in charge of the facility it was me who wasn't applying enough force, who wasn't "squeezing well". We'll see when the next patrons are perhaps elderly. With a nice "tomorrow I'll call the plumber" it all ended. Too bad I was leaving the next day. For 130 euros a night I couldn't go to the bathroom and I ate two branded wholemeal toasts standing up with a coffee stirrer as cutlery. It'll be fine like this. I don't want to wish professional failure on anyone, but I remember that the law of the market and competition can in the long run cause serious defeats if we don't straighten ourselves out....

When you walk past it on the street you don’t really notice it, but as soon as you get in there you feel the warm atmosphere. The food is really tasty, especially the lasagna and the pizza. We got there without a reservation. Although we waited a bit but the service was good despite it being crowdy and we enjoyed our time.

Beware of this hotel! This hotel accused us of breaking their lock and door handle and charged us 178.50€! We checked in on 30/12/16 and on 31/12/16 we received an email from Booking.com saying "the hotel will deduct 178.50€ from your credit card because you broke the lock and door handle". Which we did not do! How can we break the lock / handle when we are out the whole day? And on the 31/12, we didn't even touch the lock or door handle as we had the hotel cleaning staff trying to fix the heater in the room! (We are guessing it was them who broke it and tried to cover up). Also we left our room at approx 12:00 and the room was not made up. When we came back to the hotel, the room was nicely made up with new towels. So someone else obviously came into this room to clean after we left. Anyone who walks past can break it, or again, as it is our guess, either the cleaning lady or her daughter. After receiving the email, we rushed back to the hotel and noticed they even put another key outside the room written "This is the key to your room"! Anyone can just take the key and go into our room and steal everything!! We tried to talk to the hotel staff but they do not speak English. How can you advertise in Booking websites that hotel staff can speak Italian and English, and not speak English! Lucky my partner was able to speak to the owner and explain it wasn't our fault! The owner Aurora said she wouldn't charge us and said she is sorry that we have face this issue. But today (02.01.17) our credit card has been deducted 178.50€. So are you a liar Aurora? We tried to call 3 different phone numbers to reach a member of staff, but of course we can not get to anyone! What kind of service and business is this? Firstly when the door handle is broken, should you be checking if a thief tried to break in? Shouldn't you ask your customers if there are anything went missing? No! Not only you did not do that! They accuse their customers of breaking the lock and charge them. Also sticking another key to the door so that the whole world can have access to my room and my valuables? This is a big disgrace from you and your hotel! Travellers - Please think twice before booking this hotel! They might purposely break something and charge it to your credit card! BTW- your facilities are so crap. Internet keeps dropping out, Bed and breakfast but does not provide breakfast? Takes mins before the hot water comes out, heating does not work!! Staff/owner are not contactable!