Bella Italia Palace Hotel

Accommodation Quality: Spacious, clean rooms with good sleep comfort, often described as "pulite" and "spaziose."

We travelled as three friends. One of my friends was meant to spend our last 3 nights in Novara at Bella italia and we were meant to join him for the last night but we cancelled our booking due to poor hospitality! We were busy with our day (on 11th May 2022) and by the time we packed and walked about half an hour to get to Bella italia, it was 9.40 pm. There were 2 receptionists - a guy who seemed to be the manager, and a young lady. The guy made it seem like it was really wrong of us to arrive after 9pm and said my friends booking has now been cancelled, however the lady spoke to him in Italian and was nice enough to allow our friend to still check in. Once he had checked in, all three of us were going to take him up to his room and help him unpack so we could leave for dinner soon, however they said only 1 person is allowed up with him so I stayed in the reception and my 2 friends went up. I was using my phone and while sitting at the reception the man told the lady something in Italian and she told me to text the friend to come downstairs. I did that and when he came down, he was literally treated like a criminal. As soon as my friend came out of the lift, the man forcefully said "ID". He didn't say can I see your ID, he didn't say a reason, he just said the word "ID" and gave my friend a stern look. We don't even understand why he was questioned like that. We don't speak Italian and don't come from this country so didn't want to cause any trouble; my friend didn't say anything back and just handed over his passport (which he was luckily carrying at the time). We waited outside for a bit until my other friend came and they asked for his hotel room key back. I'm not sure why keys are taken back at the hotel but when asked the man said "secret". It just seemed odd that they don't trust their customers with keys. I've been to many hotels in the past but have never had to hand a key back each time I leave. We were supposed to move there for our last night too but luckily had until midnight to cancel our booking. Our friend had already paid for all three nights but only ended up staying there the first night because of how poorly we were treated. He ended up losing the money for the last 2 nights. Overall, we felt like we were treated like criminals at Bella Italia. The atmosphere created was just poor, mainly due to the man at the reception. I highly recommend you not to stay here if you want a positive, welcoming environment while on holiday.