Hotel Villa Margherita - Golfo Aranci

The hotel was lovely - clean, nice fittings, spacious, friendly, lovely breakfast. There was a nice terrace overlooking the swimming pool, beautiful garden and the sea. This terrace was used for dining (there was a dining room behind). We were able to sit on the terrace every morning for breakfast, which was a pleasure. The balconies are spacious and give a lovely view over the bay. The hotel provide beach towels, which wasn't on the details. Only 3 slight niggles - there wasn't a beach in front of the hotel, we had to walk about 2 mins the end of the beach and then walk round to the fullness, so there were no beach umbrellas or beach sunbeds (though there were sunbeds around 2 sides of the pool and dotted around the garden and there were plenty of shady places as well as sunny ones). Second niggle - there was free parking or there was covered, secure parking which cost EUR 7 per day. We didn't pay and could park without problems but the car was always very hot when we got in. Third niggle - we thought from the details that there would be in-room safes but there weren't. We didn't ask if there was one at reception. The photos on the website don't do the hotel justice. Dinner at the hotel was quite expensive but delicious however there were several nice restaurants close by. We particularly enjoyed the restaurant next door to the hotel (La Taverna del Lupo di Mare I think - it's terrace ran alongside the hotel garden, on the right as you stand in the garden looking towards the sea) and also La Spigola on the beach. There's a fantastic ice-cream shop about 50m from the hotel reception - turn right when you leave the hotel and it's on the right. Each day there were a couple of new flavours. (If you've not been to Italy before, pay for your ice-cream first and then hand your receipt to the server and tell the server which flavours you want.) Overall, we really enjoyed staying at the Hotel Villa Margherita and would happily stay there again.