Not particularly friendly reception, in an oldish building two blocks from the central railway station. Everything seemed a little rickety, and some rooms were being noisily refurbished. Unusually for cheap station hotels everywhere, it’s on the lower floors of the building (although there is no lift).
My room was large, white-painted, with plastic cladding along the lower part of the wall, the kind you find used for cheap showers or edging flower-beds, and turquoise tiles on the floor. Big double bed, with soft lumpy mattress.
The room was on the second floor, with a small balcony overlooking the main street, the better to observe the Neapolitan passion for noisy driving. There was a hand basin and bidet (the bidet was good–-powerful, efficient and directional) but there wasn’t much else in the room, working or otherwise, and only one of the lights worked, the low power one, high in the centre of the room. There was a shower room down the hall, but as it was only open between 8.00am and 5.00pm, it wasn’t much use to me. Adequately clean, if you didn’t look too far under the bed.
This was the cheapest room I could find in Naples, and it was overpriced at 35 euro for single occupancy (excluding breakfast). There was a large gloomy breakfast room on the first floor, but I never saw anyone using it (apart from a maid changing her dress – profuse apologies for the disturbance on both sides). In fact I never saw any other guests at all.
Despite the lack of demand, no one anywhere seemed flexible on pricing. I tried 2-3 places near the station, and 3 others in the old town and near the sea front. Which makes Naples the most expensive European city I’ve visited (outside Scandinavia), greatly to my surprise. The Speranza would be ok for an overnight, but the Nettuno is a much better bet for a longer stay, although 5 euro a day more expensive.