May 15, 2012

The Perfect Place To Stay in Perugia – Hotel Gio

One of Hotel Gio’s Wine-themed rooms

If you’re looking for a the perfect place to stay in Perugia Hotel Gio just outside the city’s centro storico offers you two hotels rolled into one, with a choice of distinctive themes – one will jazz up your stay and the other will have you clinking glasses and popping corks.

Sound enticing?…

Hotel Gio

As soon as you arrive at Perugia’s Hotel Gio you realise at once that this isn’t going to be one of those bland, faceless anonymous hotels.

Even though the property’s location on the edge of the city in a large purpose-built property makes it seem more motel than boutique hotel, as soon as you’re through the door it’s clear that this is a conceptual hotel – with two separate and distinct themes on offer under one roof – and where no opportunity to play with the wine and jazz-inspired concepts has been missed.

A detail from the Jazz themed rooms at Hotel Gio

There are two big benefits to the slightly out of town location. Firstly it’s ideal if you are arriving in Perugia by car and don’t want to face the hassle of driving into the traffic-restricted cobbled streets of the old town, or stressing about parking. You can simply leave your car in the hotel’s parking lot free of charge and walk a few moments to be taken up the hill into Perugia’s delightful town centre by the cutest and tiniest of mini-metros (tickets cost €1.50 each way and you can buy them from hotel reception).

Only a photo can explain just how mini this metro really is!

Secondly, the modern building means that Hotel Gio is unusually spacious for a boutique hotel, and with 206 larger-than-average rooms (with full-sized bathtubs too, not always the case in Europe, especially in city hotels) it’s really is roomier in more ways than one.

Wine cork keyrings at Hotel Gio’s reception desk

All the space leaves plenty of scope for a separate entrance and check-in area for both the Jazz and Wine ‘areas’. My wine room experience started with being handed a cork keyring at reception, and this attention to detail continued with wine-bottle lamps and wine-case bedside tables in my comfy room, while the Jazz side offered everything from metal musical symbols adorning the banisters, to vinyl placemats in the restaurant and best of all a life-sized piano-floored corridor that implores you to recreate the scene from Big.

Anyone else picturing Tom Hanks in a toy store when they see this?

Hotel Gio has all the in-room amenities you could expect or need – air conditioning, satellite TV, CD player, hairdryer plus formidable shutters so you won’t be woken by sunlight if you don’t want to be. Breakfast is tasty and plentiful and the hotel’s restaurant is itself a major participant in Umbria’s Slow Food movement which champions great, traditional local cuisine and celebrates regional culinary ideas.

High Points

Business and internet area Hotel Gio

The rates, which start at a pretty bargainous €59 for a double room if booking in advance are very competitive and leave plenty of cash to buy wine or chocolate treats from the hotel’s genuinely exciting selection of gifts (I very nearly bought a life-sized chocolate laptop!).

The rooftop pool is a real bonus in the summer months.

Best of all are the themes themselves, which I found cute and fun, and really raised a smile.

I also liked the free in-room wi-fi and readily available laptops in the foyer – a useful touch that’s not always available in Italian hotels.

Low Points

The wine area is all wood, corks and barrels, but that does mean there’s lots of brown.

The bathrooms are fine but nothing fancy, and you probably won’t be pilfering the bath-time goodies on offer which are generic and serviceable rather than luxe.

The location won’t be for everyone and if you’re headed to Perugia for the nightlife it could be a bit of a pain to get back home – the Metro stops at 9 pm!