Trieste

My wife and I booked this hotel as the first stop in our 2-week trip to Italy. We did not want to break the bank and this hotel was priced reasonably. That, along with the location, is about as good as it gets here. The room was ample and reasonably clean, but the bathroom has no discrete shower area, and ours flooded when we bathed. Hot water was scarce. There is no air conditioning, and opening the window exposed us to the noisy street below. The staff was nice enough and spoke fair English. I'd recommend this if you simply need a place to bed down and don't mind putting up with somewhere a bit rough around the edges.

I stayed at the Hotel Trieste for two weeks back in January 2006. My stats: single female in her late 20s Purpose of travel: study-related Budget: tight Looking for: clean, safe & inexpensive accomodation close to city center - would serve mostly as a base to come "home" to after work I found the Hotel Trieste fulfilled all of the criteria above. The hotel was within a 20-30 minute walking distance both from the university (where I spent the weekdays) and the major tourist attractions (which I saw on the weekends). My room was clean and basic - no decorations, TV without a remote control (I think you had to pay extra for it), desk, two single beds, closet and mirror. Although I booked a single room without a bathroom, I was upgraded to a double room with a bathroom (toilet, shower) at no extra charge. The room was cleaned every day which also included a fresh change of towels. The only window in the room looked onto a neighbouring building so I kept the curtain closed most of the time. Sometimes I could hear neighbours come and go in the hallway but otherwise the establishement was fairly quiet. Even if there was noise at night, a pair of earplugs filtered out most of it without any problems. Heating was acceptable but not great - however, a hot shower before bed and plenty of night clothes solved this problem. The lock on my door, at least from the outside, seemed kind of sketchy and I was initially worried about this but I ended up having no problems during the two weeks. Breakfast ended up not being included in my stay but thanks to eariler reviews on this website this did not come as a surprise. There is a little grocery store nearby, however that has everything that you need - including fresh mozarella at an unbelievably low price - and so my breakfasts ended up being quite tasty and probably more varied & cheaper than if I had the one at the hotel. My passport was taken away at check-in but after some persistence got it back the next day. Three gentlemen manned the front desk during my stay - they were all very helpful and kind to me :-) and spoke good English. I even sent them a "Thank you " card afterwards. The two other things to note are that (i) there is no elevator so you have to carry your luggage up the stairs (but this could make for an entertaining "travel story" later in your life) and that (ii) there is no real reading light in the room. Overall, my stay at the Hotel Trieste was a very nice experience and worth the money I spent. If I ever go back to Milan I plan to stay there again.

Does not deserve 2-star rating. This was the WORST MOTEL we have ever been to. I would rather sleep on the street. Avoid this torture at all costs. Don't ruin your Milan experience. And don't come here if you plan on getting any sleep. We stayed here for 5 torturous nights. We are in our mid-twenties. We travel quite often, on a budget. We are not too picky. But, this was just unbearable. We got the impression that Trieste is the kind of sleazy motel where people come to have sex. Of course, we wanted to leave this motel the first night, when we froze to death, and couldn't sleep because of various people having sex, loud moaning, screaming and other noises. Unfortunately, we were unable to find another hotel because everything was booked up solid due to the IT conference. As a result, we were stuck here for five iong nights. Here are the problems: 1. Unbearable temperature, Freezing in the room. Motel does not provide heat. We were here in October. It was quite cold outside (about 55-60 F at night). The motel did not turn on the heat at all. Temperature in the room was about 60 degrees F as well. (I am not exaggerating). In the middle of the night, each night, I would get out of bed, frozen, go downstairs, beg the front desk manager to turn on the heat. Sometimes he did, for an hour or so, sometimes he didn't. Their answer to my request was, they ran out of oil, so they are conserving on the heat until they get more oil delivered. It was unbearably cold. The first night, I called the front desk, they said there was nothing that could be done. In desperation, I turned on the hair drier for a few hours in order to try to warm up the room. I tried talking about this issue with different managers, but they continued to ignore my requests. Other guests in the motel complained too. All they did was offer us an extra blanket. For all 5 nights we were here, I had to request that the heat be turned on. At best, they turned on heat for 1 hour and then kept it off for the rest of the night. I would like to point out that the heat was on in the lobby and it was nice and warm. We asked the front desk whether they can provide an electric heater for our room. They refused, saying it was against the law. We had nowhere to go. Desperate, we bought an electric heater (inexpensive). From then on, we were nice and warm. Problem was solved. 2. NO SOUND INSULATION AND LOTS OF NOISE. You can hear EVERYTHING that is happening in the motel, in the adjacent rooms, in the hallway, on the staircase. SInce this is a sleazy motel, the kind that people rent a room to have sex, the moaning and screaming and other such sexual noises were constant, all night, every night. We literally woke up in the middle of the night to these intimate noises. We could hear everything, conversations on the staircase, etc. I suppose it can be kind of kinky, if you're into that. Don't come here if you plan on getting any sleep. 3. EVERYTHING ELSE --Carrying heavy luggage up to the third floor and back down on the way out with no elevator (indescribable: an experience of its own) --The TV: non-functional --the phone: worked! but had to pay a lot for making local calls (you can use a phone card with a toll-free number--it's free) --the room: nasty, dirty, far from pleasant --the bathroom: skeevy, but all things considered, doable. Also, wear waterproof boots because the floor is always flooded with water because there is no shower curtain --noisy bathroom fan was a blessing: we used it to block out all the other noises --attitude from front desk. Nasty, disrespectful, rude, disinterested, simply not nice. --yes, they kept our passports --overcharged us for phone calls, refused to give us proof/receipt Location was ok. Semi-close to central attractions, but still had to use public transportation. Overall, I warn you, this place if the worst ever. About nightlife and cabs in Milan. Cabs are relatively scarce in popular/hip neighborhoods at night. It's very difficult to catch a cab in the middle of the night after you go out dancing. Beware. It's scary. Public telephones are scarce-to non-existant. Make sure you know numbers to call a cab and a cell phone would be great. We stood in line to get a cab for over an hour at 2 am. We were almost ready to walk to the hotel. Thanks for reading. Hope you have better luck than we did.