Locanda da Mami — Restaurant in Charvensod

Rude staff, noisy and expensive for what it offers

This is a guest house on a hill outside Aosta, located on the first floor of a small building, and there is a restaurant on the ground floor. The lady who 'manages' that hut showed her bad mood from the beginning, when I called for directions (my GPS got lost). She sounded irritated because I did not see her 'palast'. I wanted the cheapest double room (50 EUR), and it did not seem so bad at first glance. Old furniture, low quality building work, extremely tiny bathroom, the sink is in the room, walls which haven't seen white paint for many years. But all of that would be bearable for 1 night. I found that the light in the bathroom was not working: the light bulb was OK but the switch was visibly damaged. It could be a problem, because there is a step up to get into the bathroom, so at night it is almost mandatory to turn the light on if you don't want to fall on the WC. So I went downstairs (to the restaurant, because there is no reception) to complain, and the lady manager sent a waitress to check it out, who told me that the 'manager' would have come later to solve the issue, but it did not happen. The manager did not come, at least to apologise for the inconvenience. Moreover, you cannot sleep until the restaurant is closed, because you have in the room all the noise from guests and kitchen. And this is the same for all rooms, not just for the cheapest. In the room you hear even the noise from people walking in the corridor, as well as the TVs of the other rooms.At 22:00 I went downstairs to ask the lady manager to close the restaurant backdoors, to lower the noise, and she answered that she would give me back the money if I got out, because I was complaining too much for a cheap room. I refused to leave because my partner was too tired and in that weekend Aosta was full of tourists, so no way to find another place in the nearby. So we left early in the morning, leaving no comments, which I saved for this post. We continued travelling in Aosta Valley for the next days and we found an excellent guest house in the same area (Frazione Capoluogo, Charvensod): Maison Borbey. The manager is really polite and available, it was cheaper and the house is fantastic. I recommend you to check it out in...

Positive: The room was a good size with a large king-size bed (actually two single beds joined together) and the shower worked fine. The pizzas were well cooked in a traditional wood pizza oven. The view of the mountains from the high up location in the morning was stunning. There was free overnight parking in a public car park on the opposite side of the road, by the local school.. Negative: It was much further from the main road than described on the Booking.com website, which stated it was 2.5Km from our location, but was actually over 12Km away up a steep winding road. We also had to pay a toll of €11.20 to get off the main road, which made this more expensive. We booked a twin room, but we're only offered a double. Fortunately the bed was big enough so we could sleep separately. I believe that we were the only guests, so minimal services were provided. The lady proprietor was drinking, playing music and making a lot of noise with two young male friends until very late, well after midnight. I had to tell them to be quiet so we could rest, as we had a very long drive to Calais the next morning. I believe we were overcharged for our evening meal and drinks. £25 each seemed a lot for a pizza (€7) two beers and a small local drink. The en-suite toilet and shower were tiny. I had to put my feet into the shower tray when sitting on the toilet, and I'm only 170cm / 5ft 7in tall.. The owner would not take a card payment, insisting on cash, with no receipt given and we were also charged the tourist tax. We were told that breakfast would be served from 7am, but when we went downstairs at 7.20am there was no one there and everything was locked. We had to find our own way to get out of the locked doors and start our journey without even a coffee. On a matter of safety, I did not see any fire exits as all the main entrance doors were locked and bolted...

Da chiusura immediata ||Abbiamo prenotato una stanza con due letti singoli, non essendoci alternative. Qualche giorno prima, ci viene data la possibilità di fare un upgrade pagando 25€ in più, per avere la stanza matrimoniale, ma non abbiamo sfruttato l’occasione poiché per una notte l’importante era riposare. Quando arriviamo alla locanda, la proprietaria tutto fare, ci indica una ragazza (la cameriera) che ci porta nella stanza matrimoniale. Per correttezza, chiediamo se fosse quella la stanza e la ragazza ci risponde: “ah sì certo, io non la conosco nemmeno”. Da premettere che non ci hanno nemmeno chiesto un documento. La camera praticamente aveva l’ essenziale, ma questo è il male minore. Internet inesistente e telecomando della tv non funzionante. Doccia senza doccino e riscaldamento che non potevamo regolare noi. Dalle 22 fino all’una di notte, si sono susseguiti una serie di schiamazzi a mo di Bronx, che venivano da fuori, da parte di un gruppo di ragazzini. In più c’erano rumori provenienti dal ristorante giù. Il bello è che la proprietaria, dopo la nostra prima lamentela, ci informa che questi rumori sarebbero terminati presto (erano le 22 circa e noi eravamo in camera dalle 19). ||All’una di notte, scendiamo a lamentarci nuovamente, poiché era impossibile riposare in quelle condizioni e troviamo la sorpresa: il frastuono proveniva dalle altre camere affianco, dove c’erano dei ragazzini intenti a festeggiare il loro compleanno e con la proprietaria presente. Tra l’altro, quest’ultima, nel momento in cui ci lamentiamo , ci risponde che non abbiamo pagato chissà quale prezzo, e che i festeggiamenti sarebbero terminati per colpa nostra. Dopodiché, ci offre un amaro forse per farci calmare o prendere in giro, considerando che continuava a ripetere che non le interessava delle recensioni negative ma, al contrario, i ragazzini dovevano viversi il proprio divertimento tranquillamente.||Non è giusto, a mio parere, sfruttare le stanze per farne un compleanno. O meglio, sarebbe opportuno avvisare chi viene a soggiornare. ||Tra l’altro, l’indomani mattina non c’era nessuno alla “reception”, ma solo una ragazza che non sapeva se dovevamo o meno pagare la tassa di soggiorno. Alla fine abbiamo lasciato la nostra quota e siamo andati via.||Se non sapete fare questo...