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Hotel Romae - Rome hotel reviews
Hotel Romae ***Hotel Romae is a cheap three-star hotel to the east of Rome's main railway station. It is a budget option but rooms are well-equipped and comfortable. > More information/make a booking
I stayed at Hotel Romae anonymously in May 2005, booking a single room online. The location wouldn't be my first choice for convenience, but the hotel room was a very good deal at €65, especially since I actually end up with a double. I returned to the hotel in 2009. On arrival the hotel seems like typical budget accommodation. Like many Rome hotels, it shares an entrance with several other hostelries. Hotel Romae is obviously a busy place - throughout my stay there always seem to be people queuing at reception. Plenty of tourist information is available in reception, where excellent English is spoken. Staff are eager to help with advice and tour-bookings. A free internet point is available in the small public lounge area alongside reception, which is a useful and popular service. 
My room is a reasonable size and furnished smartly, if not expensively, with co-ordinating furniture and stencilled walls. The furniture consists of a desk, chair, suitcase stand, wardrobe, a fridge (always useful on budget trips), a safe and television (with CNN). There is a bowl of fresh fruit thoughtfully provided on the desk, along with a knife to prepare it. The room has air-conditioning and spare quilts. The room is a little gloomy, as a bathroom now stands where presumably a window once was. Alongside the bathroom is a glass door leading onto a small balcony (I can stand on it and no more), overlooking a courtyard. The bathroom is small and L-shaped, and is very smartly and freshly equipped with good quality fittings and a few toiletries - although the effect is let down somewhat when I notice the cracked ceiling. I can hear a lift from my room but otherwise it's fairly quiet and I sleep very well (note: to judge from the floor plan, most of the rooms overlook the street and may be noisier). The bed is actually two beds pushed together - one of the mattresses is firm and comfortable, the other is rather saggy. Breakfast is included in the price, and taken at a restaurant a few yards away (there is also a discount for hotel guests dining there in the evening). It is a reasonable self-service selection of cereals, fruit, rolls, croissants and hot drinks. For stocking up on food, there is a useful supermarket called Pam on the next street (Via S. Martiro della Battaglia, 20). This hotel certainly falls into the budget category, with very competitive prices. It's not luxurious, but it is obviously experienced and efficient, with plenty of considered touches to make guests comfortable (the fruit, fridge, safe, suitcase stand, hair-drier). The facilities on offer mean that the hotel is a really practical base for seeing Rome without spending a fortune. Another feature which pleases me is that the hotel is entirely non-smoking (a welcome change from the norm). The location is not quite ideal. The hotel is the far side of Termini from the historic centre. Still, the station is only a few streets away, which is handy when you arrive with suitcases, and you can use Termini as your public transport hub for getting around Rome. The immediate surroundings are pleasant and respectable, but as you get a bit nearer Termini you experience the dodginess that comes with big city railway stations - so hold on to your valuables and be alert. Hotel address: Via Palestro, 49. From Termini, cross Via Marsala on your right (the road where the Terravision buses stop). Take Via Vicenza, or any of the other streets leading off Via Marsala, and simply walk straight on until you reach Via Palestro. From Via Vicenza you turn left to reach Hotel Romae. > More information / make a booking at Hotel Romae UpdateI stayed at the hotel again in September 2009, paying 68 euros for a single room. My room, a double, was on the third floor, on a corridor which appeared to undergoing construction work: it was missing a ceiling, and pipes and wiring were exposed. My room was fresh and white, with a white duvet, long white curtains and matching furniture: 2 bedside tables, a chair, a desk, a large mirror over desk, coat hooks and a suitcase stand and a wardrobe with drawers. There was a mini bar, and Sky on a small tv, showing BBC news. The bedroom opened on to an inner light well/ courtyard. It had air conditioning. The hotel now offered free wireless access downstairs and cables available (pay a deposit) for access in-room. There was a small bar area with a thermos for guests to make tea or coffee (albeit with a strange sweet milk substitute). My bathroom was very narrow, and I had to squeeze past the toilet and under a towel rack to reach the shower - a tall or fat person would have found it awkward. The receptionist I encountered was charming and multi-lingual. I was disturbed by a difficult baby crying in a nearby bedroom, but that's not the hotel's fault. I was set to update my original review thoroughly favourably, but I had a rather unpleasant shock in the morning. The corridor outside my room was not just unfinished, it was being worked upon - from 8am. Workmen on ladders, discussing their job, starting drilling as I left for breakfast half an hour later. Since they were up in the roof space near an outlet grille above my shower, I also felt uncomfortable using the bathroom. Although I'm used to Italian budget hotels and the incomplete ceiling hadn't surprised me, to carry out building work outside the door of rooms currently being used by guests - with no advance warning or apology - seemed far from professional. I doubt that such intrusive construction work would be a common disruption, so it probably wouldn't affect future guests, but I did feel disappointed, as the hotel had in all other respects seemed so professionally-run. Breakfast is now taken in a bar over the road. The hotel's card entitles you to a meagre continental breakfast, brought to your table, or can be used as a credit towards a cooked breakfast. The basic breakfast consisted of a croissant, yoghurt, roll, jam and hot drink, with no fruit juice offered. Tea was served in a small cup with the strange sugary packet cream I'd encountered at the hotel - luckily I now knew to request real milk. I suppose, despite my bad experience with the construction work, I would probably still recommend the Romae as a decent budget place to stay in Rome. Read the latest guest reviews through this booking link before you make up your mind: Hotel Romae review by an Italy Heaven editor. |
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