Hotel Villa Maria

"We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Villa Maria! It is close to Lake Garda (5-8 minute walk). There is a lovely promenade walk into Desenzano town centre. We can't emphasise enough how efficient, helpful and friendly the staff were. We have no hesitation in recommending this hotel."

"Whilst all the staff were friendly and helpful, this hotel lacked any soul or atmosphere and our room was so tired and dated. It was however clean and the bar and pool area was nice enough but the rooms definitely need some money spent on them. Breakfast was okay with a continental selection. It’s worth bearing in mind this hotel is approximately a 25 mins walk to the centre of Desenzano, a good 30 mins walk to the train station and a 15 mins walk to the lake shores. Whilst we are keen walkers this was not a problem for us, but we did find it tricky to easily get around to other places relying on any ferries or buses. It was also not easy to pre-book a taxi. For example, we went to Venice for the day and caught a very early train from Desenzano. When we asked to pre-book a taxi to get us to the train station early the next morning we were advised you can’t book a taxi for a local destination until the same day. We then had to get up extra early to ask reception to book us a taxi (this was at 5:30am) to be told the taxi can be booked now but will turn up at any time and be on a metre. A taxi did turn up, which was good, but we were sat at the train station an hour before the train departed, so an even earlier start to our day than was needed and a bit of an aggravation to be honest. It’s obviously a local ‘rule’ that the taxi firms won’t take local bookings until on the day regardless - never known anything so ridiculous. in summary, I would say Lake Garda is beautiful, especially further up north of the lake, but it just didn’t seem geared up to help the tourists get around very easily. We couldn’t always catch a ferry back, unless we caught one at 3:30pm in the afternoon and on a couple of occasions we were standing at a bus stop for at least an hour wondering if the bus was going to turn up. A lovely place to see, but sadly probably wouldn’t go back and definitely wouldn’t stay at Hotel Villa Maria."

"We had a lovely room on third floor with balcony and great view of the lake but the hotel offered little else - had to take our own kettle, mugs and cutlery to make a drink in our room. Only one glass to have cold drinks. Had a few days of wet weather but had to venture out as no food available after lunchtime. Buses and taxis were not available in the evenings! Lovely scenery but unimpressed with Italy and the Italians we came into contact with."