Relais Ginevra

Beautiful rooms in a redecorated building next to the restaurant run by the same family. The rooms were clean and well-maintained. Service was courteous and prompt in both the restaurant and the inn. The surrounding mountains were beautiful. We booked a week at this location because it was midway between Bologna and Parma. We quickly found that driving to distant points was too much trouble. Instead, we would drive to Vignola and catch a train to anywhere we wanted to visit. The food in the restaurant is excellent and inexpensive. The menu is diverse enough that we ate dinner five times and had something different every night.

You'll see the pictures and won't understand why on earth we have rated the place with 3 stars. The room is MAGNIFICENT. The bed is super comfy. There is a jacuzzi (we stayed at the honeymoon suite) and a fireplace. The skylights can open remotely and have automatic shutters. So far, so good. But this is where you may suffer a death by 7 paper cuts. We couldn't get the jacuzzi to work as there were no instructions. The water flow is so slow that it took over an hour to fill it up. The same goes with the remotely operated fireplace. Just couldn't make it work. The skylights had a programming that made the shutters closed in the middle of the night. That made a big noise! The aircon was not cooling, and the remote's batteries were weak. We had to play with them. The same goes with the TV remote. Since the room was hot, we had to open the windows. But the place is just next to the road so we 'enjoyed' the noise from passing trucks and cars. Once again, don't get me wrong. The room is beautiful. The view is amazing. But for €190 per night in the middle of nowhere, proper maintenance would have turned it to a 5 star rating.

For a start, this place is not, in any way, a 5 star hotel as marketed. It is a 2 or 3 star. I have stayed at the Locanda Gli Ulivi several times not far away which is a 2 star and i'd say its on a par with that. However, the accommodation is very good, but there is no a/c. There is an a/c unit but it wasn't connected apparently - why? The breakfast is very basic, and on monday there wasn't even anyone to serve us (not 5 star service!) but it was pleasant enough. I will say that the food in the restaurant nextdoor was excellent (mixed grill and pizza was incredible) and Guilia in particular was very helpful and speaking to us in English. Overall a great stay but definitely not 5 stars, the road is a bit noisy than thought and they need to sort out their a/c.