I studied in Italy during the summer of '04. 10 of us decided to go to Pescara for a long weekend. We stayed at the Esplanade and had a great time. The hotel rooms were spacious and clean. The staff was helpful. The hotel restaurant is on one of the top floors completly open to the outside, with a view of the Adriatic. The food is good, but the scenary is what makes it awesome. The price is very reasonable for the quality of the hotel and its location. It is directly across from the beach, shops, and restaurants. It also give direct access to the city. Plenty of shoping and dining can be done with-in a short walk of the hotel.

Hotel is very easy to find, just a 5 minute walk from the main station straight down to the beach. The Esplanade staff spoke very good English and were very polite and helpful. The hotel itself is pretty basic. Room has TV and good air-con. Good size bathroom. Didn't eat in the restaurant, mainly because of reviews on tripadvisor. Nearby restaurants are ok, but nothing special. If you happen to eat after 8:30pm then the restaurants will be busy and we found that all the waiters struggled to cope. Only restaurant we would recommend is the Fish restaurant just opposite the hotel. I think it was the La Sirenetta. Pizza at the Palm Beach restaurant was probably the next best. We chose Pescara because we had to be in that region for a few days. I think we were ready to come home after our 4 days there as there are not too many things to do. We did try the Museum of Modern art, which had an Andy Warhol exhibition in 2 rooms and then there was just one other room with a few paintings in.

Booked the Esplanade based on the Tripadvisor recommendations and also the Time Out guide. Have to agree with the reviewer who placed it at not much better than 3 star. The room was fine, clean, everything we needed, but hardly worth 140 euros/night (£100). Made the mistake of wandering into the rooftop restaurant to check out the evening menu - we were briskly shown to a table and asked if we'd be interested in the special - turbot in a wine sauce. This was demonstrated to us on a platter, we thought on the way to another table. Looked nice enough so we agreed to have it. It was promptly set in front of us, lukewarm, with a plate of cold chips - no option for starters/side orders or even a few olives before the main. We asked for a sweet afterwards which took an age to appear and was a bit stale - the staff then disappeared completely. Not much of a romantic evening! On check-out we found we'd been charged 54 euros for the fish and another 20 for the stale puds. Time Out says this is the best hotel in Pescara - I hope that's not true.

My fiance and I visited Pescara for a 4-day break during July 06. Pescara is a fantistic beach holiday with mile upon mile of golden sand and a calm sea. The weather is great, it was 28-35 C every day and there is low humidity. The best thing about Pescara is that it has not been ruined by tourism. The beaches are full of itallians on thier summer vacation. Nothing like some tourist filled resorts in Europe with packed beaches, bars filled with louts, restaurants serving full english breakfasts etc - you know what I mean. Pescara is a classy holiday destination and I hope it stays this way. You may want to brush up on you italian lingo before you go or do what I did and take a lady that can speak itallian. English is not widely spoken there. We stayed at the Hotel Esplande which is easily the best hotel in Pescara - not cheap tho. We booked flights with Ryan Air and the hotel directly. Esplande is a 4* hotel and is right on the sea front. It is close to all the bars, restaurants and is across the road from a fantastic beach. Our hotel room was great and it even had a seperate TV room where we dumped our luggage and clothes. Our continental breakfast was served in the roof-top restaurant with great views of the sea. I beleive it is worth while paying a little extra and the Espanade is definetly good value for money. The only downside is that there is not much to do in Pescara. This is a holiday destination where you spend long days on the beach and relax in the evening with a nice meal and fine wine. This brings me nicely onto my favourite topic: food!!!!!! The food in Pescara was great!! - what else would you expect from italy? The first restaurant that I would recommend is called La Sirienta (not sure about spelling). Walk out of Esplanade, cross the main road onto the beach side and walk towards the right - it's about 10 meters down. The pizzas and pasta dishes are fantastic and it's great value for money. We ordered the local house wine and that was great too!. Why pay silly prices for fancy food when you can have great simple food and fantastic local wine for a few quid? The food was so good we ate there on 2 nights of the 4 we were in Pescara! The second restaurant I would recommend is called La Morales (not sure about spelling again!). This is an amazing 'manic' seafood restaurant full of locals. If you like sea food (like me) you will love this restaurant. I can just picture Rick Stein goin on about the food they serve in one of his cookery programmes. This restaurant is on the opposide side of the road from La Sirienta but alot further down (about 15 mins walk). Just ask the hotel reception desk for directions to the restaurants. However, we didn't find the reception desk very helpful. They were not rude or anything, just a little quite and discrete. Pescara is an great destination for a short break.

This hotel was so good that I was motivated to write my first trip advisor review. This hotel has fantastic service in its roof top restaurant that would not be out of place in a gordon ramsay restauraunt (although others may disagree, I found the waiters incredibley attentive and friendly, even if the food was of good rather than excellent quality). The decor was amazing with pluch flock wall paper and amazing vintage furnishing. The bed was soft and the comfiest that we had on our two week trip to Croatia and Italy. We had a brilliant sea view with our own balcony overlooking the sea front. If you dont believe us, check out hte Time Out review page on google , which sates that Esplanade is the best hotel in Pescara. Also, even though Pescara is a bit of a dump we found the shopping there excellent and the people amongst the friendliest we had ever met.