I Portici Hotel

We have just had a great stay at the I Portici. Our room was ready a little before the official check-in time which was good but we did avail ourselves of the complementarity water/prosecco/fruit juice bar in reception first! Check-in was fine and we were given a smart large deluxe twin room facing a courtyard. It was in good condition with a beautiful 'Liberty' style painted ceiling. It was a bit minimalist and the exercise bike was a silly gimmick. It would have been much better to have had some comfortable seating. The two chairs were not very comfortable. The beds were two doubles and were the most comfortable on our short tour around Emilia Romagna. The bathroom was well equipped and large enough but could have done with more shelf space for toilet bags. There were plenty of towels of varying sizes and we had robes and slippers. The toiletries were good to use. We also had a large dressing area with plenty of storage and the luggage rack easily took two suit cases - don't see that too often. The room was mainly quiet but corridor noise was sometimes excessive. Wi-Fi was fast and the a/c worked well if a little noisy. House keeping was good but on our last day the room had not been made up on our return at around 4.30pm. We went to reception to sort it out and the officious girl on duty more or less implied it was our fault! Talking of reception - the female receptionists were less friendly than the male ones. Breakfast was in an old small theatre now incorporated into the hotel. Whilst it was not overly lavish, it was of a very high quality compared to what we had been having in other hotels and a good balance between sweet and savoury offerings. The coffees came from the hotels public cafe and were terrific. The yogurts were of particular note! The breakfast staff were excellent, all very helpful and friendly and they ran a tight ship. The hotel has three restaurants, a cafe, a pizza/pasta restaurant and in the evening a Michelin starred restaurant. There is a lovely bar with terrace over looking a park behind the hotel. We had drinks there one early evening and the staff were excellent. The location is good - right on the main shopping street which is having a massive makeover so we were glad not to have a room overlooking that. It's about as far away from the medieval centre of Bologna as you'd want to be. Very close to the hotel was a massive market (football pitch size) most days which was fun to rummage with the locals. The hotel arranged a taxi to take us to the airport which was MUCH better than using the dreadful Marconi Monorail from Bologna Centrale (we came in on it - terrible!). It was only 30 euros or so - the monorail is about 24 euros return so was a no brainer.