Piccolo Palio Hotel

price was right

This is a basic, no frills hotel in a great location. We spent 8 days in Mar. 2008 for the price of one night at a luxury hotel. If your room is just a place to sleep and a trip to Italy would be unaffordable any other way this is the place for you. As there is no AC and it is on a noisy street I might hesitate to make a summer booking.

Traveler's tip on dining

great restaurant in Siena is La Torre - just off the Campo

Ordinary hotel.

Location is good. No nearby parking. You can drive to the front door and park there to check in and out, but you have to park a fair distance away. Nothing special about this hotel. Ancient shutters for windows. I should have brought some rat traps with me.

Traveler's tip on saving a few bucks

Bring your own sheets and towels. I’m a pretty hardy traveller but even I was a little uncomfortable here.

Sad and Shabby

The ladies at the desk were very helpful and friendly, but the hotel was very difficult to find. The hotel could be charming with some cleaning, refurbishing and painting. The bathroom was extremely small, but the toilet in the shower! That was pretty weird. It was not worth what I paid!!!

Traveler's tip on local attractions

The hotel was in walking distance of everything that you wanted to see. The only good thing I could say about the hotel.

Avoid the Piccolo Palio

I had done my due diligence on hotels in Siena on the web and cannot believe this one was rated favorably by anyone. Sure, it sounds great: a 15th century monastery turned tourist hotel located in the heart of Siena, but it was anything but great. My husband and I "suffered" there for 5 nights, traipsing on carpet in our room that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the monks lived in it. (It was painfully obvious that the money went into remodeling the external facade and main floor area and not the guest rooms.) Also, in their fancy brochure, it shows a picture of a buffet-style breakfast. Uh, not exactly. Breakfast consisted of one pastry, one yogurt and one cappuccino, and may lighting strike upon thee should you ask for seconds. My husband one day asked for a second cappuccino and the employee pointed her finger at him and yelled in an Italian accent,"No! That’s extra!" It became a running joke with us for the rest of our trip. Also, breakfast was provided at a cafe across the courtyard, not in the main floor corridor as pictured in the brochure. Unlike the photo, the corridor was dark, and gloomy, inhabited by only a dirty, broken TV set. The hotel staff was friendly, but other than that, there’s not much else positive to say about this place.

Not a recommended hotel

This hotel was neither clean nor comfortable. There was a hole in the door that allowed people in the hall to look directly into the room. Gum wrappers were shoved into spaces around the door. The bathroom did not have a real shower...simply a drain on the floor in front of the toilet and a showerhead above. Worse, the drain didn’t empty fast enough and the entire floor was covered in 2 inches of water during the showers. Also, there were ash trays in our "non-smoking" room. The walls were not sound-proof AT ALL. The provided breakfast was not on-site. A bad experience overall.