Il Reticolo

The room was crystal clear, and the cleaning service was excellent. The location is very convenient and the staff were polite. Space is somewhat limited, though: the food and reception desk are on the same floor, and you can hear breakfast being prepared each morning.

The warm welcome from Il Reticolo’s two owners more than made up for anything one might criticize. The B&B takes up one floor of a traditional building, with modern design, comfortable beds, and tasty breakfast choices. I also had the best shower of my Italian holiday this year. It’s right in central Salerno, just a short distance from the main train station, tourist harbor, main shopping street, and lots of good restaurants and cafés. An excellent place to stay.

The food was a problem too: the bread was stale on day one, the butter tasted rancid and was a month past its date, the tangerines were partly rotten, the ham and cheese had no taste, and the eggs were stone cold. In the room, the bathroom had a nauseating sewage smell, the shower kept switching between hot and cold, the beds were very hard, and feathers from the down comforter scratched us. The only chair was hard and stained, and there was no desk. We'd asked for a quiet room because we planned to stay a week. Instead, we got a corner room with two large balcony windows facing busy intersections, and the traffic made sleeping impossible. After two awful nights, we told the owner and manager, Carmine, we had to leave early because we'd been misled. While we were packing, he charged our Visa for all seven nights using a photocopy, without warning or our authorization or signature. When we asked him to do the decent thing, he showed no remorse. There's also a similarly terrible TA review by an Italian titled “Dishonesty.” In more than 50 years of traveling around the world, this is one of the worst B&Bs we've stayed in. Avoid Il Reticolo B&B Salerno if you want to enjoy your vacation. Travelers deserve better than this nightmare.

Breakfast was fresh each morning, and they can tailor it to dietary needs. The rooms are modern and clean. It’s centrally placed, so the station and historic old town are both a short walk away.