Pros: walking distance to train and bus stations for side trips to Taromina and Mt Etna (the reason I chose to stop there two nights), the hotel has a contract with the taxi service providing good rates to the airport, great water pressure, size of the room, in-room safe, helpful staff, breakfast which was 5 euros a day extra but still had the cheeses, meats, danishes, and so forth expected from the breakfast buffets - in fact I could smell the danishes coming down to breakfast each day, colorful neighborhood. A fruit vegetable seller came through the neighborhood on Monday morning with his goods on the back of small truck. I could just imagine his grandfather doing the same thing with a horse or donkey cart. Cons: by day, this working-class neighborhood was fine and I felt safe, by night is a different story. I could have taken a taxi to another neighborhood for dinner, but I just structured my day so I returned to the hotel well fed at dusk. I had a non-smoking room, but I could smell lingering smoke when I walked in the second day, furniture was shabby and the easy chair had dark stains around the bottom of the skirt, and finally, there was a noise that occurred every 6 seconds (I counted) that could be heard all over the hotel. The sound was low but persistent.