Wednesday, 2 October 2013

Hotel Aranci, Vieste: like stepping back in time (in a good way)

7th September
About 30 years ago, when my children were very small, we went on a package holiday to Lido di Jessolo in northern Italy. It was a favourite seaside venue of many nations, and the hotels were middle of the road, serving middle of the road Italian food to families, and adapting to their particular needs. By modern day standards, it was all very quaint. It was the days before huge attractions and nightclubs and singles bars. Coming to Vieste in 2013 was a bit like stepping back 30 years. It it was not for the fact that the rooms now have flat screen televisions and telephones and free wifi, you might not know. The decor is the same, and for the mostly half board guests, the restaurants could have been a stopped clock. I do not mean this in any derogatory manner, and if fact it brought a bit of joy to my stick-in-the-mud heart that this sort of thing, and the holidays for native families on the beach is still alive and well in some parts of the world.

We dined in the hotel dining room and our 50 British tourists were mingled with other guests and ate the same as them. A four course dinner, with antipasta, pasta, main and desert.
The antipasta came from a hot or cold buffet, and was a huge variety of local style dishes.
The hot was so-so, scoring about a 6.9.
We were more luck with the steaming plates of pasta with seafood served to our table.
The main course was a little less exciting. being a non-descript escaloppe of meat which could have been pork.
However it scored a 7.9 and clearly was of Italian intent.

Breakfasts were in a modern annex of the hotel, and despite a review that had warned is that all that was available is bread and cake, they had run to a more extensive buffet. This was good news and bad news. I have to show this picture of the chafing dish that was used for egg and sausage:
Clearly another example of local project management, with no quality improvement activities during our stay. Suffice it to say, that the food was cold scoring about 2 on the CHOF scale. However they did serve fresh cappuccinos and the bread was excellent. 

As there was nothing but sliced processed cheese on offer, we bought some of our own from a local supermarket which did the trick. We saw other families had brought their own supplementary items into breakfast. It was also quite clear that some of the families were using breakfast as a filled-roll factory and were making their lunches for the beach. The hotel was turning a blind eye to this, but it meant that some of the bread and deli supplies vanished temporarily before re-ups were provided. My wife said the backed apples were excellent.

All in all, for a good old fashioned family hotel experience in a charming town, I would recommend the Hotel Aranci.

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