The holiday started extremely well, we were very impressed with the standard of the Turin hotel (the Hotel Concord) and with the wonderful food at the local restaurant. Everything we had hoped for in what is quite an expensive holiday. However, we weren't so delighted with the Hotel in Montecatini, the Grand Hotel Francia & Quirinale. Our room overlooked a derelict hotel with empty pool, which in itself wasnt so bad, and not the fault of the hotel, but the bath was very narrow based and high sided, not at all suitable for older geusts. The housekeeping was very good, our room was cleaned and remade daily to a very good standard. However, our main criticism has to be the food we were given. Whilst breakfast was ok, the evening meals were not good. Most felt they were similar to the standard of school meals! Everything was bland, with very little fresh fruit and vegetables. We had travelled to Italy, where the food generally is wonderful, but were given an Anglicised version of most things, done badly. A bit of fresh pasta and salad would have been wonderful! Vanilla ice cream is not acceptable as a dessert every night.
Our tour guide was excellent, and did try to deal with our concerns for us. The visits to Lucca, Siena, and Pisa were excellent, with wonderfully informative and amusing guides. The wine tasting and meal at a chianti vineyard was also an unmissable experience. Florence was however, disappointing - the guide marched our group around, we had no opportunity to enter any buildings (churches here have some wonderful artworks and are totally free), and by the time we reached the Ponte Veccio, most had already left the tour to explore by themselves. It was unfortunate too, that having been advised to book our own entry to the two major art galleries, the daily itinerary was altered so that unless we were able to travel ourselves back to Florence on one of the two rest days, the tickets were useless. The local guide was hampered unfortunately, by audio that wasn't working, and kept cutting out, meaning what she was telling us made little sense.
I question whether the hotel in Nice was suitable for a group of older guests? There was one lift, that carried only two people at a time, whilst the rooms were up several flights of steep stairs. The staff did do their best to help, by offering to carry up our cases, but it was less time consuming to do it ourselves. The rooms were acceptable, though very small, the bathrooms less so - small would be an understatement! The toilet extended in front of the shower, and was soaked when someone used the shower. The shower itself was so small, it was impossible to turn round in it!
Overall, we did enjoy the holiday, but after the wonderful start in Turin, found the accomodation thereafter to be disappointing. The outings were very enjoyable, if somewhat tiring, with lots of walking, and possibly it should be made clearer that the level of fitness required was quite high.
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