Magione Papale Relais

We booked this hotel for its location just outside L'Aquila for convenience of parking out of the city centre and because it was a Relais chain hotel. The hotel was fine with its facilities and location etc but the details didn't really come up to our expectations. The room was fine but we soon discovered that some of the lighting and power points didn't work and after a visit from the onsite receptionist we discovered that one of the electrical trip switches was down - this should have been checked before our arrival. It took quite a while to connect to the hotel's wifi but we eventually succeeded to then also discover the main light in the bathroom was probably only about 15 watts and very dim, so much so that we had to use our mobile phone torches to see what we were doing in there! Not a good start. The food in the dining room was as good as we had expected it to be from the website but the ambience was distinctly lacking as so few people were checked in and we never ate dinner in the same location - once in the small dining room, once in the banqueting hall as there was a private party in the dining room and once in the breakfast room on our own as there was a wedding in the banqueting hall and in the dining room. We felt very secondary to other events being staged in the hotel and rather pushed around to suit other bookings. Breakfast was fairly acceptable and fulfilled our needs. Overall we were disappointed with our stay at the hotel, although the room was serviced daily the level of service could have been better and more welcoming and we did really feel somewhat neglected in favour of other group bookings and a wedding party. A lesson to be learned here is to perhaps enquire upon booking whether there is a wedding going on during your stay and perhaps then choose another hotel?