Good – low price 65 euros for double room with breakfast, good breakfast, comfortable, clean rooms, lovely pool with great views,

Bad – a fair distance from old town, courtesy bus only ran 3 times a day, road noise at pool.

Rating out of 10 – 9

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Perugia for two nights in May 2008 during our one week touring holiday of southern Tuscany and Umbria. The best rate available when I booked in mid February was 65 euros per night for a double room including breakfast on the hotel booking site Venere found using the HotelsCombined price comparison site. You should also check the Holiday Inn Hotels site as they may offer the best rate. The Holiday Inn site offers a Price Guarantee but there seemed to be so many exclusions that I thought it simpler just to book on the Venere site.

View to Perugia from the Holiday Inn pool

I knew when I booked the hotel that it was several kilometres from the city centre but this meant that the hotel had free parking and there was a courtesy bus to the city centre available from the hotel. However during our stay the bus only ran three times a day, departing the hotel at 09:00, 15:00 and 18:00. None of these times was really suitable. It was very hot around 35 degrees celsius during our stay and we wanted to visit in the evening when it was cooler. I think that a service running every 2 – 3 hours until at least 22:00 would be more useful. We drove into the city centre where it’s free to park after 20:00.

The rooms even had a kettle to make hot drinks in your room, very unusual in Italy,. The room was very clean and comfortable with a good shower. Our room was at the back of the hotel away from the road noise from the nearby dual carriageway enabling us to sleep with the window open, rather than having the air conditioning on all night.

Breakfast was one of the best during our trip in Italy. Breakfasts in Italian hotels can vary quite a lot in quality and variety of items on offer and the Holiday Inn had a fair choice and the quality was good.

We were lucky to have the swimming pool and jacuzzi to ourselves on a couple of occasions. There’s a wonderful view to Perugia but the road noise is a bit distracting. There were about eight sun loungers around the pool which could be a problem if the pool were busy.

In summary a great value hotel with good standard of rooms and breakfast, free parking, easy access to a fast road with the bonus of a swimming pool. It’s ideal for a touring holiday as you’re only a couple of minutes drive from the dual carriageway. However I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have your own car or courtesy bus frequency improves dramatically.

This post was featured in the Carnival of Cities on 21 June 2008.