Hotel Porta Santa Maria

The way the staff handled our arrival was the worst part. The man at Hotel Porta Santa Maria was rude and casual about the whole thing, telling us we could “go away” if we didn’t like the alternative. When I said the room wasn’t acceptable, he started shouting at me. I can only imagine how frightening that would have been if I’d been traveling alone as a woman, facing an aggressive, burly man. I often travel solo, and that thought made the situation feel even more troubling. We had booked through Booking.com and driven more than an hour to Hotel Porta Santa Maria, drawn by the reviews, the restaurant, its old-town location, and the included parking. On arrival, we were told the hotel was overbooked. We understand that these things can happen, but a nearby festival meant rooms in town and around it were already hard to find. The man said he had found us another room “200 meters away,” but it was actually nearly a five-minute drive to a completely different, charmless part of town. It was tiny and stuffy, had no windows, and a sloped ceiling that meant I could only stand in half of it. I’m 5 feet 6 inches tall. He still wanted 70€ for this mousehole. My suspicion is that someone at Hotel Porta Santa Maria knew the local accommodations were sold out and tried to switch us into a room so unpleasant it normally couldn’t be rented. We ended up paying much more for a place 30 minutes away. Even that less-than-ideal option was only possible because we had a car. Without one, we could have been stranded with nowhere to stay, which would have been very worrying.