Roman holidays
A visit to the Eternal City, with its eateries and cultural sights, will inspire and delight
Edgy Italian design
Palazzo Ripetta is a 17th-century complex that has gone from “convent to Art-Deco icon”, says Maresa Manara for Condé Nast Traveller. Now, it is one of the few remaining independent five-star hotels in Rome, embodying the “kind of edgy elegance” for which Italian design is famous. It’s a “big visual treat” from the moment you enter the lobby, “with meticulously restored artefacts” and contemporary art on the walls. The 78 rooms and suites are also “exquisitely decorated”. “There are big Murano glass chandeliers dangling from high ceilings; colourful bed headboards, and Frette linens so soft that you’d be forgiven for staying under the covers all day.”
The hotel is “smack bang in the heart of Rome’s historic centre”, which puts the cultural sights of the Ara Pacis, Trevi Fountain and Pantheon all within easy reach. From €455, palazzoripetta.com
Your home from home in Rome
Hotel Eden, “the Dorchester Collection’s historic gem at the city’s core [is] your luxurious five-star home from home”, says Dora Davies-Evitt for Tatler. It first opened in 1889 as the first hotel to include a lift, heating and running water. Stars of the silver screen, including Ingrid Bergman and Federico Fellini, stayed over the years, and today “the great and the good still flock to its halls to explore the capital”. By day, you can visit the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain, or enjoy the “intimate spa”. By night, you can join the “glamorously dressed Americans” enjoying cocktails in the bar. There is a “distinct privateness about the Hotel Eden. It is grand, but shimmers with understated elegance”. From
A Roman grande dame goes glam
“Top-tier” hotel group Anantara has taken the grand Anantara Palazzo Naiadi landmark hotel and given it a “glam” makeover, says Rebecca Winke in The Telegraph. “The formal stuccoed lobby has been updated with Art Deco-inspired décor and a chic cocktail bar.” But it’s at the rooftop dining and drinking area, with views of the Fountain of the Naiads, that “you glimpse Anantara’s modern vision – greenery-filled indoor and outdoor areas, a scenic pool and a buzzy, youthful atmosphere”.
Anantara has also expanded the spa, adding a sauna, hammam and a full range of treatments. The hotel is easy to reach, thanks to Rome’s main Termini rail station around the corner, and “stellar sights”, including the Baths of Diocletian and the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs, are located on the same square. From €500, anantara.com
Glitz and glamour with excellent service
The new InterContinental Rome Ambasciatori Palace hotel is located on the Via Vittorio Veneto, which, in its 1960s heyday, “was a magnet for the glitterati”, says Ian Walker for the Mail Online. It was built in 1900 as a place for ambassadors visiting Rome to stay and, later, as the US Embassy Library, incorporating “a classic Renaissance style with columns, gables and Roman arches accentuated by dazzling chandeliers”. The original majestic white marble staircase remains, while at the rooftop bar, called Charlie’s, you can enjoy views over the city. And yet, for all the glitz and the glamour of the hotel’s “distinguished history”, it was the “excellent service” that really stood out.
From £305, rome.intercontinental.com
Indulge in a Roman ritual
Opening a new five-star hotel in central Rome is never easy. “The only option is to renovate an old building,” says Rebecca Rose in the Financial Times. Fortunately, hotel group Six Senses secured the “imposing” 18th-century Palazzo Salviati Cesi Mellini. It is a “storied building”, having remained a private palazzo until the early 20th century, when it became a cinema and bank. More recently, it received a “lavish external glow-up”. Set back from the main drag, the entrance is “discreet”. Inside, the hotel feels “airy, with comfy indoor and outdoor seating and oversized plants”. It’s “barefoot luxury, with heels” – “cool and pared back, and natural tones abound”. Naturally, a stay at a Six Senses hotel is really “all about the spa” and here there is a Roman baths complex. “If this ancient watery ritual was good enough for the emperors… it was good enough for me.” From €1,000, sixsenses.com