Hermitage Hotel & Resort

The Hermitage Hotel is a lovely, small hotel with the most beautiful grounds. The hotel is a gem and the staff remarkable. It is so nice to stay in a place where the staff is so attentive and friendly and always available. The rooms are very clean and the style reminiscent of days gone by with modern conveniences. In short it was delightful! We were there when Israel was attacked and the front dest set up their computers to play just about every station from I24 to Fox to Italian news so that we could watch the incredible horror. They are truly a hotel with tremendous feeling, high standards and exemplary service. Do not hesitate, go to this lovely resort which is walking distance to town and beach and also offers a shuttle to each.

To be honest, we were quite disappointed with our stay at the Hermitage Hotel, for the following reasons: 1. The most disappointing thing was the price of the beach club. While the website does say that “Beach tents rates […] are not included in room rates”, we thought the fact that the hotel was described as having “a private beach” would mean that the charges would be reasonable. The price quoted by the reception when I asked was €200-€500 PER DAY. So unless you’re the type of person that can spend that much on sun bed hire every day, don’t expect to use the beach club. 2. Overall, the hotel did not feel that luxurious for the price. While the rooms were spacious and clean, the decor felt a little dated. The free coffee in the room was Nescafé instant, compared to coffee machines in all of the other places we stayed in Italy. At breakfast, my girlfriend was charged €8 for two fried eggs, even though scrambled eggs were served for free. Overall, it just didn’t feel that great for the price. 3. The hotel didn’t really feel that relaxing either. The noise insulation was not very good, and combine that with the fact that it’s a child-friendly hotel meant that we were often woken in the mornings by children in the halls/rooms around us (even though we stayed during term time). We had dinner at the hotel restaurant one night and there is a football stadium right next door. So you could hear every kick, whistle, crowd cheer etc. The hotel is also next to lots of big residential properties with pools, so we couldn’t relax on our room veranda area without hearing kids shouting in the pool next door. 4. The location isn’t ideal. The hotel is not on the coast (though there is a free shuttle to the town or beach club) - it’s surrounded by roads with no pavement so it’s difficult to walk anywhere. A walk to the nearest big shop requires you to walk along the side of quite a big road. It’s also quite far from the train station and when we arrived, there were no taxis outside so I’d recommend pre-ordering one if arriving by train (which is not cheap - €25-30 for an 8 minute drive). 5. Finally, while this is not the fault of the hotel, we did not like the area at all. While we were expecting there to be beach clubs at the beach, there were just beds as far as the eye could see in either direction and right down to the water - you could hardly see the beach/sand at all. The town is full of designer shops but there was hardly anyone in them. It just seemed like an odd place, with a disconnect between the price of things and how nice it actually was. In the end we checked out 2 days into our 4 day visit, and went to stay in Pisa instead. Personally, I would not recommend this hotel or forte dei marmi more generally.