We have booked La Pallotta Hotel in Assisi for a couple of nights to begin our Italy stay. It was recommended in Paul Hofmann's book on Umbria as well as the Blue Guide. Has anyone stayed there? There is a restaurant run by the same family. Comments appreciated.

I did a search on this board and found several favorable reviews about the restaurant. You might want to try that and try looking at tripadvisor.com to see if you can find any comments about the hotel.

Fodor's gives the hotel a great review but, according to feedback from a traveller there were some problems, e.g. renovations underway. This review was undated so if anyone has stayed there recently, comments would be appreciated. They did not ask for a credit card number to secure the room. Is this standard practice?

Every hotel that I've contacted in Italy always requires a CC # to hold the room.

Odd...the e-mail confirmed the dates but explicitly said it wasn't necessary to send a credit card number. Perhaps I should anyway.

At the very least, make sure you print off the confirmation and take it with you.

I'd love to know what their website says in English, if anyone can help. The address is www.pallottaassisi.it.

When I booked all my hotels for our Italy trip, only half of them required a CC number - I wouldn't send it unless they ask for it, why take the security risk?

I looked at the website you mentioned and on the right side it says "choose your language". Click it and choose your flag.

I must be doing something wrong. The only thing that popped up in English was the flag that said "Welcome." Were you able to get more information in English?

Couldn't get it to go beyond the English flag either.

I used freetranslation.com (I found this on another thread) and was able to get a rough and very literal translation of the information on the website.