Hotel Royal Victoria, by R Collection Hotels

This was the most beautiful hotel I have ever stayed at. I booked it last minute but I was a bit worried as I did not read much about it. We arrived to Varenna by train and did a 10 minute walk to the hotel. You can avoid this walk if you call the hotel and ask them to pick you up (it is complimentary). We were pleasantly surprised once we arrived. The hotel is placed in the main plaza of the town. At the other side, you can get an incredible view of the lake with Bellagio in the distance. We arrived and the staff immediately greeted us and helped us get situated. Get the room with the balcony, trust me. You will be able to wake up and enjoy looking st the lake in the morning while drinking spresso from the balcony or just read a book. The concierge, Hugo, also came through with an order of flowers for our room which were beautiful and fresh. The breakfast is great but not amazing, I don't complain because it is free. However you can enjoy the view of the lake while eating which is very hard to do in the other places in town. Hugo also recommended we go to bellagio for the day and made a quick plan for us. He was incredibly knowledgeable and he is actually well known with a lot of the merchants in the area. He was able to provide us discounts for boat tours and other plans in the area.

My wife and I stayed here for 3 nights on our honeymoon. The hotel is in a great location in Varenna and offers amazing views. We thought the rooms and accommodations were comfortable. The staff were generally friendly but fairly unhelpful. We tried booking many things over the 4 days we were there including massages, restaurants (we were told no reservations are necessary which is definitely not the case), and boat tours. While they went through the motions to help, we ultimately weren’t able to do any of those. Even for massages, all they did was suggest to call their sister hotel in Menaggio. Boat tour was cancelled in the morning and while other guests were rebooked for the afternoon, we were simply cancelled (again, the staff didn’t seem to do anything more calling once after we inquired multiple times as this was something we really wanted to do). Granted we were only going to the front desk for this, but we only saw the concierge for one afternoon out of the 4 days we were there. Overall it was a pleasant stay but we were expecting more for the price and 4 stars.

Pros: incredible pool/bar/restaurant area with the view (spectacular), front desk service Cons: courtyard rooms are desperately in need of updating + our AC unit in #146 barely worked. The lobby could also use some fresh paint and a bit of renovation Overall, we had a very pleasant stay and the views are amazing from the pool area. However, there’s definitely a lot of rooms that need some updating to make this hotel a true top tier experience

This was the most beautiful hotel I have ever stayed at. I booked it last minute but I was a bit worried as I did not read much about it. We arrived to Varenna by train and did a 10 minute walk to the hotel. You can avoid this walk if you call the hotel and ask them to pick you up (it is complimentary). We were pleasantly surprised once we arrived. The hotel is placed in the main plaza of the town. At the other side, you can get an incredible view of the lake with Bellagio in the distance. We arrived and the staff immediately greeted us and helped us get situated. Get the room with the balcony, trust me. You will be able to wake up and enjoy looking st the lake in the morning while drinking spresso from the balcony or just read a book. The concierge, Hugo, also came through with an order of flowers for our room which were beautiful and fresh. The breakfast is great but not amazing, I don't complain because it is free. However you can enjoy the view of the lake while eating which is very hard to do in the other places in town. Hugo also recommended we go to bellagio for the day and made a quick plan for us. He was incredibly knowledgeable and he is actually well known with a lot of the merchants in the area. He was able to provide us discounts for boat tours and other plans in the area.