Stayed at this dump as part of a Globus tour. Three of 7 hotels were so bad that we got almost $1000 back from Globus - and this was the worst. My wife and I have traveled a lot and this place was the the worst - we've had better in third world countries. The A/C was not turned on until we arrived (it was in the 90's that day) and the room never got cooler than the 80's. The TV didn't work. The shower was small and FILTHY!!!!! We put a towel on the show floor. The bathroom was hot and not air conditioned so I opened the tiny window only to find the area around the recessed window covered with pidgeon droppings. Our party of six was stuck in an area of the dinning room that had no A/C. The pasta was mush - it had been reheated so many times that it was falling apart. The meat (?) was non discript. We had ordered a birthday cake for one of our party and it was inedible.

The breakfast and dinner were excellent. The room was tiny, dirty and cold. The thermostat was broken. It was raining, and we were chilled to the bone. We could not get warm. I do not mind spartan, or small. I just want clean. This place was filthy. The shower head ws broken and could not be adjusted up. I kept hitting my head on it. The floor was never cleaned. After it got a little wet, there was a huge pile of mud on the floor. We got the additional benefit of having someone's used soap left in the shower stall. I guess they were trying to recycle the soaps or something.

I find it very helpful that people post a review because we help each other find a hotel that suits us. I went to Rome for the canonization of the foundress of my school. I wanted to make a pilgrimage to Assisi and stayed for three nights at the San Francesco. It is ideally located with the basilica right next to it. Do not expect luxury, it is small and spartan, but it is clean, and friendly. It is also well priced. I booked through their web site. You can book your room with breakfast and dinner. Or breakfast only. The breakfast is sufficient. I wanted to try the restaurants so did not book dinner.There are many quaint trattorias around Assisi. Problem is they open for dinner a bit late. I wanted to sleep early and attend morning services at the basilica. I had to content myself with pizzas, and sandwiches. However, I did try one or two restaurants for lunch around the Via San Francesco, the street of the hotel. They were quite good. It was also the season for black and white truffles. Ask for the Fettucine alla montanara. Delicious with porcino mushrooms,pancetta, and black truffles!!I Bring home a few bottles of white truffle oil.Look for a store called Fortuni at the Via San Francesco. They have a a good variety.It makes a lot of difference when you dribble a few drops on your pasta.I was fortunate to be given a room that faced the basilica. the view was beautiful at day and night. A little busy during the day with tourists, but sensing all that devotion was worth it all. It quiets down at night.The bathroom is small and the tub very dangerous because it is shaped very oddly. As a matter of fact they have a sign posted to please take care. I guess people have slipped. The bells toll announcing the masses. I liked that very much. Better than an alarm clock. the entire Assisi revolves around St.Francis and St.Claire. There is a peaceful, magical feel to the entire place. Do not just breeze through Assisi, like tours are prone to do. Stay awhile it is good for the soul. Take as orange bus that circulates all over the different pilgrim sites. Except that ,do not get take in by some ticket vendors that take advantage of tourists. the fare is 90 cents euros, not 1.60. This is good only for an hour. You may have get several tickets as you go along. You buy them at new stands. Visit San Damiano, where St Francis got his first call. Only prepare for a long steep uphill climb after a pleasant down hill trek. The Valley of Umbria is beautiful. it is even better if you take it calmly. The San Francesco is your best bet for location and home comfort. I hope that I have been helpful. Conchita Sevilla, Madrid Spain

To judge a review, know the reviewer. Single, a man, educated, bourgeois, speaking only a little Italian, I regard North Carolina my home, the South my nation. I travel Nov-March (the heat and mob of the remaining year to be found with less expense and more pleasure in Buxton, NC). I attempt a gracious, congenial, soft-spoken, un-pushy, un-tacky mien – and from a hotel’s staff I await the same . Bad service I reward not by making a scene: My money and my person I take elsewhere. For special service, however small, I tip, generously. I neither need nor like crowds; if I want a crowd, I’ll look at a Last Judgement by Fra Angelico If the Basilica is the main sight for the devout, and the only sight for the aesthetic (as I have argued in my review of the Basilica), then no hotel is better located than the Hotel San Francesco, built level with the upper church, facing it across a grass piazza. (And it’s across from the _Basilica_, not the “cathedral”). The judgement of previous reviewers I can endorse: a room and bath spotlessly clean, furnishings simple, the breakfast good continental, and the staff kind and obliging. With luggage one should take the cab from the train station, because the (much cheaper) bus stops a bit down the hill. I arrived in March 2006, and had the hotel almost to myself. I had booked (and charged for) a single room; I was given a spacious double on the building’s corner, one window looking down into the valley, the other directly at the Basilica’s facade, lit at night, its morning Angelus bells my alarm clock. The clerk, for a Euro, let me use the computer to check email, and was patient with me and helpful when I couldn’t find the @ sign on the keyboard. This isn’t a boutique hotel; but the spirit of Assisi perhaps obliges the Franciscan ascetic, if not even the aristocratic austere (but not the Modernist concrete brutal!), in place of Baroque embellishment, bourgeois upholstery, or Vegas tinsel. Assisi's other attractions are easily accessible from the Hotel San Francesco: the Duomo San Rufino, Santa Chiara with the tomb of St. Claire and the chapel of the Crucifix, San Damiano (obliging a walk down hill, then a huff-and-puff return); and down in the valley, Santa Maria degli Angeli with the Porziuncola. Now the last church is easy enough to reach from the hotel: One need only just walk further down the dog-leg of a street to a bus park, buy a ticket at a bar, and take the frequent bus connection, a connection that also stops at the train station. The other sites require one to hike the town’s hilly streets – up from the hotel to the summit at the central piazza, then over to the Duomo or down to Santa Chiara and San Daminao -- close enough to the hotel to walk. --- Sid Cundiff, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina sidcundiff@yahoo.com