La Coccinella

It’s a quiet, relaxing place, with a very nice rustic room and a spacious bathroom. The owner was kind, honest and welcoming. I recommend it, and we’ll definitely return.

I wouldn’t recommend staying here. I should have checked the Google reviews first. Booking.com doesn’t allow reviews, and the manager apparently has guests cancel there in exchange for a discount. That practice aside, our stay was still unacceptable. The room and common areas felt neglected and dirty. The shower was clogged, with grime and mold on the enclosure, and the toilet was broken and patched with duct tape. The bed and sheets smelled musty, so we slept with handkerchiefs over our pillows. The entrance area seemed not to have been cleaned since June 2024: flyers were under a thick layer of sticky dust, and many of the listed restaurants had closed or had disconnected numbers. The calendar was still on June 2024, and even the old hand sanitizer bottle was dusty, with its label faded. The furniture looked like it had been taken from a postwar junkyard. I’m sorry to be blunt, but there’s a difference between antiques with charm and furniture that needs restoration. This felt like carelessness and arrogance, not a particular design style. The exterior fixtures were broken and missing handles. The interior doors were so poor that my six-year-old niece could do better with two planks and pressed cardboard. This wasn’t an antique look either, just neglect and disrespect for guests. The shower, hygiene and health conditions were appalling. The manager’s usual reply, “but I’m charging you €50,” misses the point. Essential hygiene and a healthy environment don’t set a property’s price; location and services do. Here the location was poor, services were nonexistent, and the cleanliness was close to warranting a report to the health authority. My advice to the manager is to invest in the place or change careers. If you spend and invest, it comes back. Otherwise, you reap what you sow. In my opinion, these managers should change jobs instead of taking people’s money. It’s a blatant scam. “Free parking” meant makeshift street parking at least 400 meters away, not a lot at the building. Unless a resident was away, the one space in front of the street was taken. There’s a small garden center and several private parking lots next door, and the building’s location is quite unfavorable. For comparison, Mr. Simone, last year during the MotoGP World Championship in Mugello, I paid only €70 a night, just €20 more than here, for a two-level terraced house with a large enclosed, well-kept private garden, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and kitchen, cellar and basement, and gated private parking. It had two sun terraces in the loggia, Wi-Fi, Internet, a flat-screen TV, a kitchen for our use, and two bottles of 2018 Chianti. The owner was very kind and provided everything we needed. That place was worth at least €100 a night, especially during MotoGP.

I’m furious with myself for not checking the reviews before booking, as I normally do. Maybe the misleading photos and description, or just being tired, made me trust them. That was a serious mistake. Guests have been describing the same room since 2018, and it was the first one we entered, almost like a basement: dark, damp, moldy-smelling, dirty and run down. It was unlivable, more like prewar conditions than rural charm. The air was stale and heavy with damp, and the sheets and blankets were soaked with humidity and stank for hours. The bathroom was terrible for basic hygiene. Water pressure was so weak I couldn’t wash my hands properly, let alone shower, and the bidet shifted every time I touched it, as if it might break. I have allergies, asthma and respiratory problems, and this was an unhealthy place for anyone with those issues. The “free parking” description suggested a courtyard or private space, but the B&B is on a busy road with no emergency lane. Parking meant leaving the car by the roadside, if a space was even free, since residents often took them, and hoping the car would be in one piece. The lovely photos may have been of other rooms. We were also told to use self-check-in. I understand this is prohibited by law, that a complaint has already been filed about the practice, and that anyone using it may face a criminal complaint. The owner denied every issue: the low water pressure, damp, mold and parking. She always does, even after seven years of the same complaints, as if everyone else were crazy. If you respond to this review by trying to turn things around and get the last word, I’m seriously considering reporting the property to the NAS. These conditions are shameful and could seriously harm people’s health. I documented everything with videos, photos and message screenshots in case you deny it. In one reply, you said you had a guest cancel a Booking.com booking, as you did with us, to save the tourist tax. That tax is required by law regardless of how a guest books. Taking payment in cash also saves you the site commission and, I suspect, lets you avoid reporting it to Police Headquarters and paying taxes. I wonder whether Booking.com knows about this unfair practice. Your written reply today came two full months after the incident. I hope you at least brought the room up to proper hygiene standards by now. I wasn’t given a receipt because I was specifically asked to pay cash for the discount. Be careful what you say, because I have everything recorded. If you claim you sent both the notification and payment receipt, I won’t be the one checking. Never again. Absolutely avoid.

Being allowed to check out without a strict time that morning was appreciated, and access to the room was easy even while the owners were away, thanks to their directions to a separate entrance. But our ground-floor room, almost underground, was dark, extremely damp and musty. We mentioned the smell to the owner as soon as we could speak with them. It’s only a one-night stay to go by, and we can’t judge whether the upstairs rooms are worth the price. Ours wasn’t. I’d suggest a lower rate or a proper refresh, including fixing the bathroom door and replacing the completely used toilet roll. I wouldn’t recommend the place in its current state. Afterward, I understood why they suggested we cancel our Booking.com reservation and book directly for a slightly lower price. It seemed they wanted to avoid bad reviews.