Hotel Galassia

The food is the worst thing that has ever touched my mouth, half of the food looked like sick.The chicken was pink, the pasta was uncooked and the couldn’t even add a bun to a burger. The blankets are very itchy and the country known for pizza has the driest pizza I’ve ever tried .

Prato Nevoso is a small regional mountain resort; skiing in winter, walking in the summer. Clientele are mostly Italian and French; English is not widely spoken. Skiing is across the ability range with snowmaking keeping open the key runs. There is a large fenced off nursery area in the village before moving on to more challenging blues. Prato is quite far south so conditions can be variable. The Galassia is a budget hostel type hotel built for groups who require a bed, bathroom, breakfast, lunch, dinner and somewhere to store ski gear. The hotel itself was built along with most of the village in the 60’s. Italian design, decor and build quality; it’s certainly authentic. Fair to say the Galassia hasn’t been modernised since it was built and a lot of the original fittings are still in place. At the budget end of the market margins are very tight and Italy has been in a 20 year recession so the hotel is maintained on a when-it’s-broken-we’ll-try-to-fix-it basis. It’s Italian and it is what it is... People looking for fault will find abundant examples of things they don’t like about the Galassia. • Electrics use old style euro-plugs (bring a euro plug not an adaptor) • Corridor layout is a labyrinth (but anybody with half a brain will figure this out in a day or so) • Pool is small with no lifeguard (if anxious do something else instead) • Budget catering. (Hungry people will eat the food; some menu items more appealing than others. Picky eaters will be disappointed because the food does not look or taste like home. Prato Nevoso is in Italy so pasta is served twice a day. Children electing for the vegetarian option are often quite disturbed to be served actual vegetables) • Portion size (ask serving staff for more if still hungry) • There is a well lit, tiled, dry 50m tunnel from boot room through garage to the slopes for better skiers. (Non skiers, bad beginners need to get the bus. There are no pavements so walking is not a nice option. The village centre is 1mile down a twisty road. Locally there is one shop, cafe, restaurant, ski hire. Lovely views though.) • Dated decor (Yes, very. Arguably the hotel needs gutting and a complete refurbishment. Not because entitled guests deserve better but so the owner can ramp up prices and make a profit. Unlikely this is ever going to happen in the Galassia though. Location, location, location.) So is the Galassia terrible? No, it’s functional and perfectly suitable for a budget ski holiday. Yes, it’s a bit tatty and higgledy piggledy but the staff are a friendly bunch and try to make a guest’s stay a pleasant one. A few words of Italian and a polite respectful attitude can go a long way; “grazie signore”... Some affluent children might have skied high end resorts in Europe and North America before. Prato can never match these so it doesn’t even try. But it’s got snow, mountains and almost everything in Prato is a fraction of the cost (fresh coffee =1.20€, luxury hot choc 4.50€) Whilst some parents can spe

I stayed at Hotel Galassia one week and I enjoyed everything. The location is very nice. We had a warm welcome at the reception on arrival. The room was warm and comfortable and the food was very nice. Professional and friendly staff. I will stay again.

i went here on a school ski trip and i was mortified. We arrived at our rooms to discover hardly any storage space, dirty mattresses, a manky, ratty blanket and paper thin sheets which were meant to be our duvets. Their were bolts missing in the bunk bed which made it unsturdy and unsafe and when you climbed up, the whole bed moved and almost tipped over. Many beds broke in other students rooms due to this. The bathroom wasn’t awful but when we first arrived, the water from the tap was cloudy and sometimes even brown which then prevented us from being able to brush our teeth or wash our hands without using our own bottled water. Also the shower rarely had hot water. However, the worst part was definitely the food. I hardly ate a single meal when I was at this hotel because the food was raw and overall grim. I can’t believe that this hotel would actually feed people food like this, every night we had to either buy food from the shops down the road or eat something that we brought with us. We were also told that there would be entertainment and a pool to go in, which were both lies as there was no entertainment and the pool was closed the whole time. Finally, due to the lift being broken, we had to carry our extremely heavy suitcases up the stairs which is a safety hazard. Therefore, we were all buzzing to get home.