Hotel Ristorante Costa Azzurra

My husband and I were looking for a place to stop enroute from Otranto to Matera, and luckily we happened upon this hotel. We were warmly welcomed by a young man at the front desk named Emilio, who gave us a very nice room with large balcony looking towards the ocean. The hotel is on the other side of the main coastal road but we had a wonderful view of the ocean from our balcony, and our room was very quiet. The hotel grounds are beautifully landscaped, and we could see that there is a large banquet room in the back of the hotel with its own lovely garden. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived, so after we dropped our bags in our room we went downstairs to see if we could have some wine in their garden in front of the hotel, and happened upon all of the hotel family gathered at a large table in the restaurant downstairs having their lunch. Emilio immediately jumped up to see what we wanted, and happily went to get us our glasses of wine, and we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon in the shade of their garden relaxing and sipping our wine. Although breakfast the next morning in the attached bar/cafe was a continental breakfast, there was a friendly man behind the bar who made us whatever type of coffee we wanted and made sure we had enough to eat. It was one of the nicest overnight stops on our trip, and was a convenient driving mid-point between Otranto and Matera.