Last night was my best night of sleep so far. Other than the thick walls in the hotel which guarantee quiet, no more credit goes to Hotel Centrale. It's a father/son operation. Father was the grump from yesterday's check-in and the son, about my age, doesn't really seem to care. Oh, but he did locate our reservation that dad couldn't find yesterday. I had visions of dad charging us our room rate and son charging us a no show fee. The room is spartan. Breakfast is the very basic and while we think the restaurant opens late for dinner, maybe it doesn't. It's not a place where I'd choose to eat.
Another plus to the hotel is its proximity to QCTerme San Pellegrino, the spa. We finished breakfast and walked over for our 10AM reservation. The building is magnificent. Very few photos because camera and cell phone were in the locker room. We spent from 10ish until noon-ish exploring the pools, saunas, showers, and steam rooms. (At the first pool we saw a couple being photographed. Part of me wondered if these were pre-wedding photos being taken or if they were models working on an ad. We found out later on that it was the latter.) My favorite pool was the one with jets to massage my feet. Next, we checked out some of the relaxation rooms. We debated whether to have lunch before or after our couple's massage.
Lunch first. Here is where I wish I'd had a camera. The room was stunning as was the spread of food. There were all sorts of things for sandwiches or salads. I wondered what time it was as I contemplated having whole grain bread and jam for dessert. It was already 1:27 and our couple's massage was at 1:30. Off we went.
Our massage therapists were Chiara and some other Italian C name that I can't recall. The next 55 minutes flew by.
The sun was finally out and I wanted one more soak in the large outdoor pool before showering. Our spa adventure ended shortly after 3pm. As much as I was totally relaxed, we had a few more things we wanted to do.
First we went to a dairy in Zoldna that the fellow from the beer place last night recommended. We bought 3 local cheeses, one that reminds Lou of something his mother made. It was easier to take a right turn than a left out of the parking lot. That took us on a small detour.
We returned to S Pellegrino T to explore what we hoped we be a scenic drive. One wrong turn took us to a construction site where we had to make one of the tightest k-turns ever. We went in the other direction to see where that led. No scenic road there. It took us to a residential area built into a mountain. Watching one man manipulate his car into his garage made me wonder what these people do in the winter.
Feeling rather defeated by our aborted excursion, we returned to the hotel where Lou got our cute little Fiat into the tight spot the son had moved our car to earlier. It was still early but we decided to walk to dinner at a restaurant that had good reviews on Trip Advisor. We got there around 5:15 and it opened at 6:30. Did we want to wait? Thinking we'd explore that end of town while we waited, we set off on a walk we quickly discovered there wasn't enough to that end of town. We checked out the menu at Hotel Pizzeria Rispole and decided it was not worth the wait.
Three more choices for dinner. A pizzeria we'd walked past several times yesterday, near where we had gelato last night, our hotel or a snack bar in an old converted station of some sort. From the outside, it looks like an old train station. Pizzeria Titti was closed, I balked at eating in our hotel so we crossed one of the many bridges over the river to walk to what we expected to be a snack bar. It was actually, Pizzeria Ciao Ciao, a very busy pizzeria.
After a tiring day, we walked back to Hotel Centrale, had an after dinner sambucca and then headed up to get organized for tomorrow. The plan is to drive to Verona to see Juliet's balcony and eat lunch before continuing on to the outskirts of Venice for the night.
Would I recommend a visit to San Pellegrino Terme? I'm really not sure.
Buona notte.
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