This hotel is reasonably good value at €70 per night for a double with bath, and sit-down breakfast of a pastry and coffee at a local café. It is located on the first floor, up a grand marble staircase. The rooms were pleasant, of a medium size and nicely furnished, with air-con and TV, and with large shower stalls (unusual in Italy). The rooms were let down by poor internal soundproofing, with only very thin partitions between rooms and the corridor. There was no street noise, but we were unlucky to get fellow guests across the corridor who constantly fought, and we could hear every word of it. We stayed here twice, but asked for a different room for our next stay and got a quieter one.

The hotel has a certain faded charm, located in a royal palace built in 1760 - the exterior doesn't seem to have been touched since (the courtyard has a certain crumbling charm) but the frescoed drawing room still looks the part. Some of the rooms look down into Ballaro street market, and the hotel is only a few minutes' walk from the main railway station. It's also a comfortable walk to all of the older historic sites in Palermo, and the port is accessible by bus.

You would never go to this hotel from the street, but once you open the door into the courtyard, you are in another century! The hotel is a beautiful old palazzo in a N. African style, it is old-fashioned, clean, good prices, nice breakfast in a local cafe (you get vouchers) and the lady was helpful to us taking photos of us in the hotel, even after we had checked-out and paid. It is also close to the station, we had a hire car but I'd not recommend driving in Palermo. I hope to go there again.

We have stayed the hotel in July 06, and liked it a lot. Nice room, Nice balcony and good location. I defiantly recommend this place -a lot!!

I have stayed twice at the Orientale; once in August 1993, and more recently over a weekend in June this year. I was pleased to see that the hotel still offers excellent value whilst being cleaner and better decorated than it was 13 years ago.

The Orientale occupies the first floor of a once magnificent Spanish Palazzo on the Via Maqueda, very close to the railway station. This is an extremely convenient location from which to explore the city, and no sleazier than one would expect. Bang opposite the hotel there is a porn cinema, but I never saw anyone going in there except the rather depressed-looking owner, who haunted its doorway waiting for customers.

For a budget hotel, the Orientale is wonderfully atmospheric and, in some places, quite grand. The grandeur of the building has had a few hundred years in which to decay, and is typical of a Palermo that has fallen a long way from being the most important city in the Mediterranean, and only recently started to emerge from its decline.

You get to Reception up an immense marble staircase, lit by enormous windows in the day, and very small floor-level lights at night. There is a large drawing room, furnished with antiques, that has a balcony over Via Maqueda, frescoed ceiling and, bizarrely, a running machine. Rooms 6 and 7 are the best in the hotel and are enormous, again with balconies over the street. The welcome one receives is not exactly effusive, but the management will be helpful if you pluck up the courage to ask them for anything. This particularly applies if you make the request in Italian.

The nuts and bolts all work well. My ensuite bathroom was adequately sized, clean and with good water pressure in the sink and shower. The bedroom had a remote-controlled air-conditioner, which was easy to use and cooled the room in a matter of minutes. Everything was kept clean, and towels and bed linen well-laundered. Breakfast is available in the hotel for a €2 supplement, but I did not try it as there are so many alternatives available nearby.

Do not stay in any hotel on Via Maqueda for perfect tranquillity. The traffic outside is always chaotic, and at rush hours the road becomes a hellish maelstrom of car horns, barking dogs and operatic shouting. I was woken at 3am on my second night by the sound, apparently, of a motorcycle gang evicting a werewolf from the porn cinema. The other side of the hotel has a street market, which ought to be a tourist attraction in itself, and becomes terribly lively after about 8am.

There will be slicker, better-equipped and friendlier hotels in Palermo, but probably not for this money. If you are on a tight budget, stay here. If not, stay here anyway.