The Europa was very nice. You will love it. Guess it will be too cold to sit outside for drinks or to eat dinner outside. If you take a water taxi, it will drop you off at their front/back door. The water taxi is expensive, but worth it. One thing you should not do, is take their complimentary water taxi to Murano. It's nothing but a sales job.

Hi Charles,

I'm staying in the Penthouse too. I'll let you know how the room is when I get back. Very excited about the terrace.

Hi Charles,

I just came back from Italy from our honeymoon and wanted to tell you about our stay in a penthouse room at the Westin Excelsior in Florence. We had room 516 and it overlooked the Arno. It was the second to last room from the Ponte Vecchio side of the hotel, which you can see easily from the terrace. I'm not sure if you can see the Ponte Vecchio as easily from the other rooms because the side of the building slants away from the river as you approach the Piazza Ognassanti. So if you were in a room close to the Piazza, then you would have to crane your neck way over your terrace to see the Ponte Vecchio. We were next door to the end-unit, which looked fantastic. The room was twice our size and it had a wrap around terrace so you could view the Arno and the city center.

The room and the terrace were great! There is a church (maybe the S. Maria Carmine) right across the Arno, and it was wonderful to open the french doors and listen to the church bells chime. In fact, you can actually see the bells swaying back and forth from the terrace! We have a great picture of it. Don't worry though, the windows and doors were reasonably soundproofed, so we were never woken up by the bells in the morning.

The terrace is rather large, about 7 feet deep by the width of the room. There are only 2 dining chairs and a small breakfast table outside. (Although the end-unit had more comfortable looking arm chairs.) But it was very nice to sit outside at the end of the day and take in the views. There is a retractable awning over the terrace, so even if it is raining, I think you could sit out on a portion of the terrace. (The only wierd thing was that the awning seemed to be on some sort of timer and only worked in the mornings and at sunset. Perhaps you could contact housekeeping to override the timer?)

The room itself wasn't very large, but very nice still. The heavenly bed was very comfortable. We stayed in a lot of high-end hotels for our honeymoon, but the Westins were the only hotels with a real pillow-top mattress. The bathroom was so-so. There were double sinks, but not quite enough counter space for the Westin toiletries and my own toiletry bag. The shower and bathtub are combined. And to my disappointment, it was not a jacuzzi tub. Your wife should be warned that the Westin doesn't provide cotton balls or mouthwash, but do give cotton swabs, emery boards and wash cloths (yes, I know this is picky -- but the Westin is quite expensive, and that leads to higher expectations). However, the room does come with its own umbrella stand and 2 large umbrellas. So you will be prepared for long rainy strolls in Florence with your wife.

The service was some of the most polished and friendliest that we encountered in Italy. The concierge desk was very nice. I wouldn't recommend making museum reservations or train reservations through the hotel though. They charged a 3 Euro per ticket surcharge on the Accademia and Uffizi reservations. And a 10 Euro per ticket surcharge on Eurostar train reservations. I was surprised by this because the Westin Excelsior in Rome did not add on any additional fees (we just tipped them).

All in all, the penthouse was a great way to end our honeymoon. Enjoy!

Milan:

Thank you for the wonderful and detailed report. One question: If your room was 516, what room number was the end room that you described (515, 517?). Thanks so much.

I don't remember, but my guess is 515. You could contact the Westin directly. All of the staff spoke fluent english.