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Floors start at zero, and the tax is paid in cash
Two things catch travelers out at an Italian front desk. The first is arithmetic: the ground floor is il piano terra and is numbered zero, so il primo piano is one flight up and the secondo piano — Alex's room 32 — is two. Elevator buttons read T or 0, then 1, 2, 3. The second is the tassa di soggiorno, a per-person, per-night tourist tax set by each city, typically a few euros, which is not part of the room rate and is frequently collected in cash at checkout even when you paid the booking by card. Budget for it. You will also be asked for your passport or ID at check-in and it will be photocopied or scanned; this is not nosiness but a legal obligation, since every guest is registered with the police within twenty-four hours. Breakfast is worth calibrating: the standard Italian hotel colazione is sweet and light — cornetto, bread and jam, yogurt, coffee — and a cooked breakfast is a concession to foreign guests rather than the local habit. Finally, the vocabulary of where to stay is wider than hotel. An albergo is a hotel; a pensione is a smaller, older, family-run version; an agriturismo is a working farm that takes guests and is often excellent value; and an affittacamere rents rooms without hotel services. Star ratings are awarded by the regions, not nationally, so a three-star in Umbria and a three-star in Lombardy are not promising the same thing.