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Back to Palermo Elegante
Hi Jessica,
First of all, I must say that everything we booked through InItaly Online was absolutely perfect. The maps I ordered were simply great, right down to the tiniest detail. We walked all over Rome and found even the most crooked lanes on them.
Palermo Elegante is wonderfully located and the general manager was quite dynamic - he actually spent the first 15 years of his life not very far from where we live in Montreal. The hotel's restaurant is first rate - we had an exquisite dinner there. The staff organized everything for us impeccably. We found an excellent café/bar, on the recommendation of a tobacco vendor, the Antico Caffé Spinato on via Principe di Belmonte, and spent several hours there having lattes, pastries and aperitifs and people-watching.
We are already planning our next trips (yes, we have several in mind) and will obviously use your services. One includes Sicily and it would be great if you would be able to have some more recommendations there. We will also be looking at your apartment rental suggestions in and around Florence and Positano/Ravello, as we want to spend more time in these areas.
Grazie per tutto e a presto!
Sharon T.
Dear In Italy,
We had a great time in Palermo and at Palermo Elegante. One of the hidden jewels we found was Trattoria Biondo, just a few blocks from the hotel. Wonderful atmosphere and food, populated mostly by Italians. We ate there twice! Highly recommended.
Bob T.
Dear Jessica,
Thank you for your e-mail and the opportunity to comment on our visit to Palermo. The recommendation by In-Italy.com to stay at Palermo Elegante was an excellent one and we enjoyed our stay there very much. The location of the hotel was excellent and allowed us to visit many Palermo attractions easily via short and healthy walks. I enjoyed the ability to check my home e-mail using their complimentary internet service. The attention of the hotel staff for directions and the switching of our room to a more quiet location were greatly appreciated. Thank you for the reservation at Il Volte for dinner (the food was excellent and the service was great.....they really seemed to enjoy their presentation and customers).
We were positively surprised by gracious hospitality from the manager who was very enthusiastic about telling us about Palermo....and who was a most pleasant host for treating us to cocktails and pastries. I think the bartender in the cocktail area was very good at his attention to customer service.....and the sitting area itself was a great place to relax after a long day of touring.
Real values were free parking and in-room make-up mirrors (my wife really liked that feature). The breakfast presentation was excellent......everything one would need. Our dinner at the hotel restaurant was somewhat confused but it appeared we were the only dinner guests that evening and so we concluded that it may have been an "off" nite....the food was fine once we got it at our table.
Thank you again for a pleasant stay. If we return to Palermo we will surely stay here again. We will also be happy to direct friends there as well.
Dennis & Judy M.
David,
Sicily was a wonderful trip and Palermo Elegante was our first stop there. Once we found the hotel and figured out its location we were thoroughly thrilled. The problem was finding it at first. We rented a car at the airport and it was tough! I do recommend that your clients get a taxi to take them to the hotel. Once in Palermo a car was not needed and getting around by foot was very easy. The concierge at the hotel was helpful and gave us good suggestions for where to walk and see the sites. I had read some of your reviewers' suggestion for restaurants and we tried two of them - The Pipi Room - small and very Sicilian place – but a little hard to find. Very close to the hotel. The second was La Cucagna which was a nice walk from the hotel and worth it. The Maitre picked my fish, chose an excellent Sicilian wine and we lingered over a canoli and some grappa. A nice 15 minute stroll back to the hotel after dinner. The breakfast at the hotel was delightfully displayed each morning and fit for a king. We met some very interesting people and got great ideas for our next stop- Agrigento by way of Monreale and Cefalu! Cefalu was a great discovery after coming from a city like Palermo. Thank you for starting out our trip with just a few glitches that really didn't bother us enough to disturb our trip. Thank you for all your clients' suggestions.
Patti & Norman H.
Dear Julie,
Thank you for your email.
I was very impressed with the Palermo Elegante. The staff were all very friendly and I will not hesitate to recommend it to anyone visiting Palermo.
We also discovered a great restaurant within twenty minute walks from the hotel called "Gagini Trattoria" located in Via Cassari. The food was out of this world, the portions were just right and it was real value for money. It is closed on Mondays.
Regards,
Adrien E.
Dear Julie;
We found Palermo Elegante to be a wonderful hotel: very elegant, beautiful appointments and public rooms, excellent location for two women (which had been a concern for us), an interesting residential neighborhood, and near major bus routes. The breakfast did not quite live up to the hotel's other components, but the adjoining restaurant was excellent. The staff, especially the manager, were very friendly and helpful. There is one caveat, and it is a major one: as two women travelling together we required a room with 2 beds. The twin rooms there are extremely small - really only big enough for one bed, and two were squeezed in. We had not enough room to get around each other to get from the room to the bathroom or the closet - walking spaces were about 2 feet wide. In talking to the manager, who would have been happy to move us to another room if one had been available, we were told that we should have requested a junior suite. As the booking agent I believe that InItaly should have information like that so that its clients can get the most comfortable room available in the hotel. I'm sure we are not your only clients requiring twin beds.
Linda P.
P.S. we had dinner at Le Volte on Via Agrigento - quite good.
Dear In Italy,
We were really glad that Palermo Elegante only had a junior suite available. For the little extra money we got what we thought was a castle. The room and bath were beautiful with fresh fruit waiting for us when we arrived. The hotel is fantastic.
Some tips: we found we could get bus 389 from the Piazza Independenza near the Norman Castle which goes directly to Monreale. Try and wait and do it after rush hour. Also the cloister at Monreale is well worth seeing, but it is closed some days in the afternoon so the best time to go to Monreale is in the morning. The hotel recommended a great restaurant, Le Volte, 3 blocks from the hotel, a tratorria with great pizza. It was very reasonable and also had fresh fish as well.
Phil and Nancy Di M.
Cynthia
Palermo Elegante is located in quiet area, yet just five minute walk to the main street of new city area of Palermo, where you can find many good stores (like Italian Brand shops) and good restaurants. Palermo is much safer than I expected. This is my forth vacation trip to Italy, and I need more attention in Rome than Palermo. In order to get to the old city area, where many sites of interest are located, however, you need to ride bus or taxi from the hotel. It is easy to call a taxi from the hotel, but it is hard to find taxi stand in old part of Palermo. Palermo summer is hot, so one idea is to hire a taxi for a day to get around Palermo and the suburb. Hotel is recently rebuilt and the room is clean and nice equipped. Good breakfast, nice service to my family, especially for my 1-year-old son.
Regards, Back to Palermo Elegante