Sant'Angelo, Matera - Small Luxury Hotels in Matera

ALERT - Hotel Broken Into During Stay - Update II Providing a response here to address the reply from the hotel management for the Trip Advisor community considering booking a stay at this hotel: Management’s reply, in short, is that what we have described (in earlier posts below) is false and we are attempting to steal from the hotel - I have provided 2 photos below that captures our experience that night - The first, shows the location tracker of the AirTag that was in my bag that was no where we had been before, once we realized it was missing at around 9:30PM local time (once Theresa told the hotel the bag had an AirTag in it, it stopped moving). The second is a picture that was grabbed as I was taking photos of surveillance cameras in the area where we found the AirTag, it captures both the hotel manager himself (Biagio, who replied previously) out with us to track it down (we thought it may still be in the bag that could be with the thieves in a cafe or in the trunk of a car), as well as my wife who had injured her foot earlier in the trip (unrelated) and had a cane. Clearly, we would have preferred to not be out there at 10pm on our vacation. Following flagging down police, who took a record of the incident and came back with us to the hotel to investigate. The next day, I went with Biagio to the police station to file a report (at 8:30AM for over an hour, again, just anything else would have been great). We re-arranged travel plans, adjusted our schedules, etc. to deal with this to the fullest extent. To suggest that this was a sham on our part is completely ridiculous. Like most prospective guests reading this review, we enjoy traveling and staying at nice hotels, etc. We were traveling with our standard things, including some relatively valuable items, nothing life changing, and we had them inside our room when we left for a tour with a company that the hotel had arranged. There’s a foundational trust you have when traveling, that a quality hotel will ensure you and your belongings are kept safe on the property. Unfortunately, that was not the case in this instance (our posts below describe that there may have been some degree of coordination between the hotel and the thieves, wether intentionally or unintentionally, they seemed to know when we left and when we would return). To the trip advisor community, we are in legal proceedings with the hotel and we will keep you all aware of the outcome. We have never experienced anything like this before. If nothing else, we are likely to be similarly-minded travelers, you have seen hotel management’s response to this situation and, at a minimum, should consider this relative to other options in the area.

ALERT - Hotel Room Broken Into During Stay - Update Providing an update here to my earlier post. The hotel has made no effort to remedy the situation and has not responded to our communications. I’ve seen hotel management do more for guests over slight inconveniences, the lack of response here has been disappointing. We have engaged legal counsel who filed a claim with the hotel. We will keep this community informed of the situation.

The setting was excellent as was the parking arrangement. We would never stay here again.

I carefully studied top end hotels in Matera and selected this one. We've stayed in Small Luxury Hotels affiliated hotels in the past and have always had great stays. This hotel was engaging and responsive before our arrival. The parking solution both seemed good and worked flawlessly. The hotel greeting once we reached the property was good and the room looked nice. It was only in the evening that we realized we had issues. First the room never got cool. Second, we had no hot water in the shower. We called down to the office and after 4 tries finally reached someone. They said it could only be looked at the next day as it was too late. They did come to inspect the issues and take a video. We sweated all night.

The next morning a maintenance person did come to the room. The water was marginally made better. The room never got really cool. Ever. And they said that's just how it works. Every other hotel in this trip to Italy has had excellent air conditioning. Some of those hotels were a fraction of the cost of S. Angelo.

As for breakfast, it is in a lovely restaurant up the hill from the main street. The restaurant is beautiful. The food is buffet style with only coffee able to be ordered. It's as though the hotel just forgets about the importance of guest engagement. Nobody ever asked how the food was or if we needed anything else. I am just perplexed how this can be such a beautiful place with mediocre service.

Hindsight we should have checked out after the first night. Maybe other rooms are great, with no issues. Maybe this type of non-service is what people expect.

When we did check out there was no query about our stay. Nobody asked if our issues were resolved. It's as if they don't care. Please consider this and look elsewhere. We will not stay here again.