This hotel has it all for a European city. Clean and central, with accommodating staff. I would rate Hotel Centrale a '9' in all these categories. But the extra surprises were the large rooms (unheard of for that price range in Europe) and the quietness of the hotel (our room had no street noise whatsoever - just the sublime ringing of church bells through the day) despite the fact the hotel is located steps away from tourist central in Florence, the Duomo Square.

Finally, I have to thank the wonderful female day staff (sadly I never did get her name) who checked me and my friend out in record time and called a taxi and had it at the door of the hotel to get us to the airport in record time, this because I read our flight itinerary all wrong and we found out 70 minutes before our flight time that we had to be at Florence International Airport, a 30 minute drive from the hotel in good traffic. And we hadn't even packed yet!

By some miracle the taxi driver got through Florence morning rush hour traffic to the airport in 35 minutes and the wonderful people at Swiss Air allowed us to board the flight to Zurich. We had only 15 minutes to spare.

It is treatment from folks such as the staff at Hotel Centrale and Swiss Air who make your travels wonderful. And with the power of today's new word of mouth, the internet, these kindnesses are noted by prospective customers and they will respond with their dollars.

Left Siena one day early and rather than return to the hotel we had stayed at in Florence earlier in the week (noisy and hot), we called Hotel Centrale (Via dei Conti 3) directly, booking on very short notice. Three things that were outstanding: the A/C was in operation, the room was dead quiet, and it was a 8 minute walk to the train station or the Duomo, or the Arno, or most anything you we wanted to re-visit. Lovely room, nice staff, and an elevator. Very good value and the hotel we'll patronize on our next Florence stay.

Lovely reception staff and lovely room we stayed in with a view of a Duomo (not the main one).
Very new bathroom.
Lift access, 24 hour reception.
The breakfast was amazing (included) - range of cheeses, bread, meats, and sweet pastries plus the much-needed expressos!
Bar and lounge area.
Ideal for walking around Florence - literally down the road from the Duomo.

My room was unhealthy cold for a human and remained cold despite several attempts by the concierge to fix the problem (though the computer). I had the electronic climate control turned all the way up but this did not make the room suitably warm for a human being. The shower room was also very cold. We were discouraged from taking showeres by the strong draft of cold air in the shower room. Still, we suffered from hypothermia and became very sick with flu and pneumonia-like symptoms. Being sick like that on the road is a bad experience. The towel rack was heated only twice a day, as was explained by the concierge, for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening. It's controlled by a computer, the concierge told me. So if you want a warm towel after you take a shower, you gotta make sure you get in and out during those times. I could not figure out when it's supposed to be actually warm. Needless to say I am not used to a hotel mandating in such a manner when I can take a shower. The staff: they seem lackadaisical and not really customer-oriented. If the heating systems is computer controlled, still the staff has the responsibility to the guests to fix problems. They should go to the manager, the owner, etc. But if they can't fix it, they stop trying and just wait for you to leave, I guess.