Hotel Lo Scoiattolo

We stayed four nights at this clean, good-value family-run hotel in an area that can be very expensive. Our room was comfortable and the air conditioning worked well, and there was plenty to choose from at breakfast. The staff were really friendly and helpful, and the pool and gardens were a lovely bonus. A good base for exploring Lagos Maggiore and Orta. Try the aperol spritz 😋.

You can’t really get anywhere on foot, and the rooms were run down and smelled of secondhand smoke. The dining room food was miserable, a disgrace to Italian cuisine. The pizza place next door would be a better option. When I asked for air conditioning in the summer, the receptionist said he wasn’t hot and told me to deal with it. Extremely rude staff. Terrible experience.

This was a terrible experience, and I’d tell people not to book. We reserved a room for two adults and one child, but at check-in they refused to give it to us unless we paid 40 euros extra, even though we could show the booking was for three. They kept changing the price. We refused and left, then called hotels.com, where we’d booked. They contacted the hotel, which claimed not to speak English despite having argued fluently with us five minutes earlier. They were rude to hotels.com too. The hotel then quickly charged 140 euros to our saved card for a room they’d refused to provide. We’ve reported it to our card company as well as hotels.com and left it with them. From what I’ve heard so far, the hotel isn’t cooperating. We had to cut our losses and pay for another nearby hotel, which was better than paying more to stay here. Very rude, sneaky, and dishonest. It felt like one big scam. There are better hotels nearby, so keep looking.

The hotel was clean, though simple and perhaps a bit tired. What bothered me was finding a painting of the capital of the aggressor country in one of the corridors. Do Italians still love the Russians?