I stayed in Florence for one night, and I chose to stay at the beautiful Firenze Number Nine Wellness Hotel, mainly due to its location and the reviews I read on the hotel. The hotel is Top 20 of all 400++ Florence hotels on TripAdvisor (no 15 as at Sept 2019) based on approximately 2,000 reviews. Wanted a decent price hotel but I didn’t want to have a miserable holiday either.
Superb Location
I got this mapped really well, I thought. I only had one night in Florence, and the following night I needed to be in Venice. But I still want to do a fair bit of sightseeing before leaving Florence. I wanted to stay somewhere close to the train station because I didn’t want to drag my bag all over the place – but at the same time still close to all the main sights.
The hotel is just a short walk to the Santa Maria Novella Train Station – about 10 mins roughly (800m approximately). It’s about 4 mins walk (350m or so) to Piazza del Duomo; 9 mins walk to Galleria dell’Accademia (that’s where you can see Michelangelo’s statue of David).
Reception & Service
When I entered the hotel, I remembered thinking how beautiful everything was. I liked the way they designed the reception area, the colours were very modern, but they still had some comfortable, cosy furniture pieces. The staff at the reception was very polite – the check-in was fast and considering I arrived past midnight – I appreciated the speed.
Room
Believe it or not, I travel solo quite often, but I have never stayed in a single room before in Europe. This was my first time. I booked a classic room which was around EUR120-130 per night with breakfast. That was the weekend rate. I didn’t think that is considered cheap for a single room, but I also wanted a good hotel, so I was good with that.
The room was really small (long and narrow), but the design was clean and modern. There was a small space where I could put my bag. The bathroom/shower was quite tight I thought. Didn’t fancy spending a lot of time in there. But it was clean and well maintained – looked just like new. A special touch from the hotel – they had a packet of biscotti waiting for me made by their in-house chef- which I remembered munching down quite fast. It was really good.
My room was also the only one up at the attic, if you can call it that. I remembered when I arrived, it was past midnight, and the front desk told me that I have to take the lift to the highest floor and then go past this door behind the lift and take the staircase up to my room. He said I wouldn’t miss it because it’s the only room there. I remembered thinking oh my goodness – only room, up on staircase – it’s not a haunted room or something, is it. Ths staff jokingly assured me that it wasn’t and that he will be right there over the next few hours if anything. Funny moment – (not). The staff was nice enough, but I was still freaking out a bit. Anyway, it wasn’t haunted – I had a good night sleep. The bed was very comfortable.
Breakfast
I enjoyed breakfast very much. I was up early so there were not many people at breakfast yet. The food selection was good – good coffee and pastries. I love the decor at the L’Atlante restaurant. What a great way to start my day out in Florence.
Convenient Hotel
I absolutely love the hotel location. The service was also good and the hotel was modern, well maintained and clean. It was a bit expensive but then again the hotel ranked high in the top 20 hotels in Florence. The classic single room works for a one night stay. But if you plan to stay two nights or more, I would go for a double room.
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