For our stay in Turin (Torino), we took rooms in two hotels consecutively. This was unusual for us as we normally do not want to incur time overheads when travelling. Changing hotel is usually a chore that eats up leisure time. Both hotels happen to be in the NH Collection group. We want to clarify here that we are not getting anything from the hotel for this post.
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Our first hotel was the NH Collection Hotel Piazza Carlina. Friends that were travelling with us stayed there previously and recommended it. Good choice indeed.
We have never stayed in this chain of hotels before.
The 17th century building is beautifully converted and the hotel is relatively new, offering an airy courtyard with umbrellas where we enjoyed breakfasts, and cocktails before dinner elsewhere.
Some of the earlier ironworks and floor tiles are retained, while the rooms offer modern designer furnishings.
Apparently, the original building was once home to Antonio Gramsci, co-founder of the Communist Party of Italy.
Our room had a balcony that overlooks the piazza. At the far corner of the piazza are several popular restaurants (where we had our pizza dinner). It provided a bit of night life in this otherwise quiet corner of the city.
The upper floors of the hotel are sheathed by curtain walls on two sides each forming corridors that offer a view of the courtyard from above. Some rooms have balconies that overlook the courtyard.
I wandered upstairs to the rooftop of the hotel where there is a terrace with outdoor seating and a gym. The hills and parts of the city are visible.
The reason we changed hotel was because the second hotel is situated inside the famous Lingotto FIAT car factory which had been converted into a multipurpose complex. See earlier post for an in-depth story.
As a mid-price hotel chain, we believe the NH Collection Hotels offer good value in quality rooms with interesting architecture, convenient location and decent services. The NH Collection Hotels is a Spanish hotel chain; they have four properties in Turin (Torino).
The hotel chain started in 1978, and now have 357 properties in 33 countries. As expected, they have the most in Spain, more than 50 in Italy, and apparently many in Latin America.
We walked past one of the other NH Hotels in Torino, the Santo Stefano, located in the oldest part of the city and faces the Roman city gate – Porta Palatina.
The NH hotel in Genoa is conveniently located on the harbor front and situated next to a pirate ship and the aquarium. See our later post here on Genoa.
The NH hotel in La Spezie is also located on the waterfront from where we walked to the harbor for a cruise to Cinque Terre. See our post on La Spezie here.
On a separate trip to Stuttgart in Germany, we stayed at a NH hotel near the airport. Apparently, the hotel serves as a base for airline crews, and is ok as far as room amenities but the food service was just adequate. However, the front desk staff was poorly trained as none of them know how to use my NH loyalty program points to pay for the night. We did not have a chance to redeem the points and they are now expired.
Generally speaking, I can see that we will book rooms in this hotel chain but only in big cities in Italy and Spain. Recommendable, depending on where.
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