During the Italian leg of our voyage, we wanted to visit Sorrento on the southern coast just beyond Naples, but it was quite expensive to stay in the town itself. No worries- Eric found us a place one train stop away in Sant'Agnello. Hotel Esperidi was quite lovely and the charming staff made us feel right at home.
We stayed in the more modest "chalet" which was quite tiny and not as glamorous as the rest of the resort. But for only 50 Euros, I'd say Eric hit it out of the park. I don't mind sleeping somewhere cheaply when the grounds and common areas are so thoughtfully done.
There is stucco and terracotta galore in Sorrento! 
Not to mention loads of lemon trees and cute bikes. (This region is famous for Limoncello. Remember when I made a batch a few summers back?)
I liked the blue checkered tiles at the pool and the geraniums blooming in the sunshine absolutely everywhere made me anxious to get several pots going as soon as we get home. So cheerful and unpretentious, aren't they?
The lobby and lounge is devoted to Jackie. Not sure why they chose her as a "theme" exactly, but I think she would have approved the decor nonetheless.
We also opted for the five euro breakfast each morning and it was a pleasure to come eat musli and have our cappucinos on these prettily set tables. Eric and I are at a strange point in our life of traveling where hostels don't really cut it anymore, we hate the anonymity of chain hotels, and we aren't quite up to a $200 dollar a night splurge either. (Especially when its a six week adventure!) It's wonderful that there are more and more budget friendly boutique hotels popping up to fill this gap. What is your favorite hotel experience?
2 comments:
While Pat and I were traveling Germany, Austria and Switzerland a couple of summers ago, we gave our travel agent a nightly dollar limit on our hotels. The only things I specified were clean and that we had own bathroom. This put us in 2 and 3 star non-chain hotels. This also put is in some interesting places in the five cities we visited. I think our best experience was the first hotel in Munich. We were there for about a week. We had a room on the 4th, top, floor with an amazing view of the city. Often, these hotels were outside of the touristy areas but then also offered us the advantage of experiencing the real people of the community.
The hotel we stayed at in Zurich was...can I say...memorable. Like I said, we had a travel agent book our hotels for us. We were unaware of the second hotel being a gay hotel. I might have been a little apprehensive at first due to the two discos on the first two floors of the building and I had no idea if they allowed straight couples stay there. I had nothing to worry about because they did let us stay there. The discos were loud into all hours of the morning but the hotel included earplugs with each room. Zurich became our favorite city and we can't wait to go back!
I love that Zurich story- those little adventures are sometimes the things you remember most. It's fun getting off the beaten track, huh?
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