Over the weekend, we stayed at the hotel at which the wedding reception was held, the hotel Baia dell’Est.

I had booked it because it would be easy and permit us to drink without having to worry about driving.

And, then, I read the Trip Advisor reviews – and I was worried! They weren’t very good.

To be honest, it has good and bad points. The view from most, if not all of the rooms is stupendous. The hotel sits on a rock high above the coast with views over about 200 degrees around. Most rooms seem to have a balcony or terrace for you to enjoy those views – looking over the bay, over the beaches and over the beautiful-looking sea.

We got there and walked from the car park to the reception. As you walk down the path, past some holiday cottages (part of the hotel), to approach the reception over a rather nice internal terrace-type area. We could see one of the other terraces over-looking the sea.

Patric, the owner, who has recently taken over the hotel, is a really nice guy with a good smattering of English (enough to get by). The reception area is modern and cool. He gave us our room key and took us down to the room.

We had a small apartment which included a bedroom, bathroom, lounge-cum-bedroom area with two single beds, a kitchen area with dining table and a rather large terrace. Had we brought the dogs, it would have been perfect as large areas of the terrace stayed in the shade from the large pine planted there. In the height of summer, this would have been the perfect place to be.

It was clean and tidy.

The only thing that we could fault with the room was that it was a bit tired. The furniture and fitted kitchen were of a 70s or 80s style and it seriously needed updating. But, we weren’t staying there for a week, so that was OK. And, anyway, we thought it was unlikely that we would be staying in the room for long periods given that we had a car.

But, the views were truly amazing.

One other small problem – although advertised as “with a restaurant”, in fact, until (I think) July, the restaurant is closed and then only opens for July and August. However, they were very accommodating and said they were able to get pizza delivered from a local pizzeria – which they did for some of the wedding guests who didn’t have cars.

As we had a car we went to a pizzeria they suggested that was about 10 minutes away. The pizza was good and the place was friendly and nice.

One of the problems that was mentioned was the noise. Unfortunately, the place is a bit echoey. We were far away from the place, just outside the reception, where people were drinking and, as it was English people, they did get a bit loud and drunk. I only heard them about 3 in the morning when they came to the bedrooms near us but someone did say that, with their room having the door overlooking that area, they suffered more.

For the wedding itself, I couldn’t fault it. They have three “dining areas” on three levels. Each has a terrace overlooking the sea. The area directly behind reception is the main dining area and it’s smart. The top dining area, for our wedding, was used for aperitivo and, after the meal, for desert and the cutting of the cake. The bottom dining area was used for breakfast.

The food served was really, really nice and they are very accommodating as we had mainly fish which two people on our table couldn’t eat – so they served meat options. The food was abundant (after all, it was an Italian wedding) and the service good.

That was the Friday evening. Saturday evening they had another two weddings, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. By about midnight, the noise from the wedding was in competition with the disco on the beach below us. Fireworks went off about 2 a.m. but I’m not sure if that was from the wedding or the disco. Either way, it seems your sleep will be, more than likely, interrupted.

However, as it wasn’t our main holiday and as we were there for one of the weddings, it was tolerable. I think if you came there for a relaxing holiday, you could be a bit annoyed. And Patric has the idea of continuing it as, primarily, a wedding venue.

So, if you want it as a wedding venue, you’d be hard pushed to choose better. A stunning venue with excellent food and enough rooms for almost as many guests as you like. And it must be good as they have bookings for hundreds of weddings for the rest of the year.

And, then, there was the price. We paid €50 per night for the two of us. It was a special deal as we were part of the wedding but, even so, it is dirt cheap.

I would like to see it in a few years when they’ve spent a bit of money on the rooms.