Pikeynet reviews~ Continentale

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Finding the hotel is difficult to do, particularly when you are replying on your satellite navigation system and it loses the signal due to the close, built up buildings! We ended up driving down pedestrian-only areas, but ignoring this didn’t seem to be a problem and we found the hotel without police assistance! Continentale did not have parking at the hotel itself, but had an agreement with a local garage that would collect and return the car.

The reception area of this hotel reflects the theme throughout perfectly. The first view through the door is of a fireplace, stacks of logs on either side, and a plasma paying an Audrey Hepburn film in black & white, whilst some relaxing funky music plays in the background. When checking in they take your bags and your car keys, promising it will be taken care of as another leads you to your room.

So the second thing that gets you is the lift – glass on all sides, illuminated by funky colours and a weird lit ceiling. Nice! The room itself is fairly small and nothing special, but how they’ve decorated it is really good. Very much a minimalist feel, they have somehow made it warm whilst being trendy. Lots of net curtains hung from the ceiling and clever lighting behind gives it a great feel. Also has a 4 poster with a plasma at one end, and the table & chair is made to look like an old trunk! We liked the room.

Stepping out and moving up to the roof we found a very cool bar with superb views, particularly over the Ponte Vecchio bridge. Apparently this bar is one of the best in Florence, but access is restricted when it gets busy – but not to residents.

Further down in the hotel they have some more bar areas (presumably for the winter) and a relaxation room. This has about 8 loungers, magazines, funky, relaxing music and blinds allowing you to look out at the world go past. Very nice.

Something else of note was the other lift… which had a sofa in it. Bizarre, but a lift with style!

The hotel doesn’t have a restaurant and when asking for a recommendation we were sent to a tourist trap. Pearched right on the top of the hill was this restaurant converted from an old church (I think). Nice setting, nice view, nice building. Service ok. Food awful. Wine even worse. Place didn’t have one Italian speaking person in it… Hmm… Got the bill, left (by taxi) to the town centre, had some cocktails in a groovy bar (recommended by a friend), then when it got a bit too crowded went to sit in the really cool bar on the roof! Nice 

Coming back to the room we found that the turn down service had changed the lights to some night mode that made it look completely different, but very relaxing. We were impressed!
The morning’s breakfast was in a dedicated room, and guess what? This was also cool! The theme was mainly White, Pink and Black, with a hint of Audrey Hepburn, cool lights and relaxing jazz quietly played. We liked this. The food was buffet and ok.

Within Florence there is a huge abundance of super funky trendy shops. I liked it, the lady loved it! There’s also a lot of architecture and interesting old things to see (particularly the Ponte Vecchio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Vecchio) . It’s enough to burn a fair bit of time, although you’ll need to dodge the hoards of fat American tourists in their plastic rain Macs and shouting guide.

We called down 10 minutes before checking out so they could ask the garage to bring our car round, which they did. When we collected the car I noticed that there was a bit missing – a small bit that was really very minor, only it now looked like there was a hole in the back of the nice shiny, good looking sports car. This hole was the towing eye cover, a piece of plastic that cannot pop out and even if it did, is tethered on. This had been taken. The big question is WHY would anyone take it? The hotel were as baffled as we were, but had no clue. I refused to pay the 30 Euro car parking charge and we went on our way. Later on in the holiday we were unfortunate enough to break down and ended up at a Honda dealer where there was the same car (belonging to an Italian) with the same piece missing! Curiouser and curiouser…! Speaking to the owner, it turns out that it’s an Italian youth trend to steal the towing eye covers from sports cars. He got through 4 before giving up and living with the hole! Oh well, better than scratching their name on it I suppose, but worth knowing. Next time I take a sports car to an Italian city, I’ll be removing the cover first!

Summary: Great, super funky hotel, wonderful city. Really enjoyed our stay and are due to go back. We think we got a great deal at £160 a night (booked online) because we’ve noticed their stated prices are higher than this.

 

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