residence a lecce con 462 appartamenti in affitto tra monolocali e bilocali

"We stayed there from August 16th-30th. The resort is in the edge of the village Merine, 15 minutes of the centre of Lecce. We went there through our time-share company Interval International. The first impression wasn 't good, as we arrived early at 9:30' in the morning and we were told that we could not check-in till 13:00'. Although I had sent an e-mail 3 weeks ago, asking for a priority in check-in, because the ship from Greece would arrive early in the morning in Italy, I received no answer and nobody cared about that... So we stayed with our two kids outside the cafe waiting for 13:00' (our papers from the time-share company were writing for 16:00'). Note that not all of the staff of the reception spoke English (only 2)! A large crowd of people were gathered at the reception for check-in and they were forced to wait for hours to do so. After a long wait the appartment was given to us at 17:45' (perhaps we were punished for coming so early...). So the first impression was very bad, because they don 't organize well their check-in and that could be seen in the faces of all the other people, who all were Italians. Thank God, after this very bad welcome, the rest 2 weeks went very nice. The resort has appartments; we had a two-room appartment, with fully eqquiped kitchen, a nice bathroom and a large veranda. Every room had an air-condition. There isn 't maid service during the week, you have to pay extra for it. The resort and the appartment were spacious and very clean. The resort has very nice gardens, 2 swimming-pools, tennis courts, 5x5 football ground, kids playground, 2 restaurants (only self-service at noon) with good food and logical prices and an amphitheatre, where every day there was live entertainment, which is a must for the Italians and a piece of their character, with dance show, comedian sketches, competitions etc, all of them in Italian. The first week the entertainment was very good, the second it wasn 't that good. After this every night there was dj music at the swimming pool. When you arrive at the resort you have to pay 30 € for every adult and the half for every kid (although we knew that the kids pay half, in the beginning they asked to pay also 30 € for the kids and we had to show them our papers and to tell them that their web-site was telling for the half) for every week for the so called "Club Tessera", which contains the use of the swimming pool, the entertainment, free tennis, free use of the football ground, free bicycles and the use of the mini-buses which go to the beach (10km away) and the city of Lecce and are very useful. Note that the entertainment begins from the morning at the swimming-pool with water dance and gymnastic there and continues the whole day (except noon) with sports, competitions etc, for the people who don 't want to move outside the resort. The resort is a good basis for touring round Puglia (or Salento, as the Italians call it), which is the "heal" of the Italian "boot" (as you see Italy in the map). Very near to the resort is a large GS MERCADO Super Market where you can find everything. You can go to Lecce (marvellous baroque city), Otranto (very nice castle-city), Gallipoli (also very nice castle city and with nice beaches), Brindisi, Ostuni (nice old city on the hills), Fasano and the zoo-safari park "ZOOLANDIA" there, Alberobello with the old "trulli" houses, Taranto and Bari perhaps. We went also to the Grecia Salentina villages of Kalimera and Castrignano dei Greci, as we are Greeks and these villages have population with Greek origins; in August at these villages takes place the festival "La Notte della Taranta", with interesting local traditional music. Some "bad" things according to the service of the resort are that no paper is in English (that 's a general problem in Italy), they don 't give you toilet paper, if you are out of the ones given in the beginning, and the same happens with soap and shampoo (!), you have to check out at 10:00' and not till 12:00'... If you don 't pay much attention to this (and the bad check-in), then it 's a very good choice for people with kids. This area doesn 't have international tourism; the 99% of the tourists there are Italians, but this is giving you a good chance to know the Italian living and how this folk lives. We liked our stay there, but note that in Italy you have to overcome some things, like that nobody is speaking foreign languages and you have to "learn" Italian, as we did, so as to have a nice time! http://www.tripadvisor.it/ShowUserReviews-g1179329-d1134781-r20496074-I_Giardini_di_Atena-Merine_Apulia_Puglia.html"

"Soggiorno di una settimana, residence affittato dall'azienda per cui lavoro, chissà perchè non ero molto convinta alla partenza.. Uscita dalla tangenziale non trovo indicazioni per cui chiamo la mia collega che benedetta donna si mette in macchina e viene a recuperarmi ad un autogrill della tangenziale est.. prendiamo la direzione Lizzanello (che da quanto abbiamo capito è o sta per diventare una frazione di Lecce), poco più di due chilometri ed ecco che alla nostra sinistra si vede il primo cartellone illuminato, svoltiamo a sinistra ed ecco che difronte a noi si aprono i cancelli del Residence. Passiamo davanti alla reception (fortunatamente la mia collega ha già recuperato le chiavi del mio appartamento) e ci dirigiamo subito al blocco R1. La struttura è composta da diversi blocchi di appartamentini e di suite, alcuni ad un piano altri a due, tutte con giardinetto e balcone, c'è molto verde ma sono veramente stravolta dal viaggio per cui decido che rimando l'esplorazione all'indomani mattina! Due porte piu in là c'è il mini market, al fondo della via c'è la caffetteria (essendo concepito come un piccolo paesino autonomo sono state create delle vie, delle piazzette e persino un vicolo - ma qui c'è solo la raccolta differenziata!!! ); dopo la sveglia è tappa d'obbligo il bar per la colazione e cosi posso vedere un pò dove sono: giardini molto curati, tanti mici sono liberi e felici (sono tutti pasciuti e allevati in condivisione), pista ciclabile e tante fanciulle volenterose che si danno alla corsa di prima mattina.. brave davvero brave! il bar è grande e svolge anche da punto di incontro, sulla sinistra c'è l'auditorium e la zona piscine con centro estetico annesso. Il ristorante e il bistrot sono vicino all'ingresso, dove si trova anche un bancomat. la Reception offre servizio accoglienza, prenotazione e informazione. Gli ospiti hanno ha loro disposizione un servizio navetta per il centro, ad orari prestabiliti - all'incirca il termine delle scuole e dell'orario ufficio al costo di 1 euro a tratta! l'alternativa è l'affitto macchina che si rivela molto utile per la scoperta dei dintorni, a 12 km da qui si trova una località piuttosto rinnomata, si possono scoprire tanti borghi dell'entroterra e raggiungere abbastanza agevolmente anche diversi luoghi famosi del Salento. Utile per chi viaggia per lavoro, per soggiorni studio o anche solo per avere una meta alternativa alla costa senza comunque dover rinunciare al mare e alle comodità,magari lontani dalle folle estive! http://www.trivago.it/lizzanello-410631/hotel/giardini-di-atena-1377093/opinione-o495471"

"Il residence è bellissimo... e più si è meglio è!"

"il più bel capodanno che abbia mai vissuto! grazie Giardini!!!!"