Where to stay in Rome: hotels by district
A neighbourhood guide to the best areas to stay in Rome, as chosen by our resident expert, including the best hotels near the Spanish Steps and the Pantheon, and the best places to stay in Trastevere, Monti, Celio and Fiori.
Monti
A seedy slum neighbourhood in ancient and Medieval times, Monti these days is Rome’s hippest hang-out: an intriguing warren of narrow streets packed with bars, eateries and the coolest of boutiques. The Imperial Fora border it to the south-west. Further north, the feel gets less intimate in busy, retail-heavy Via Nazionale, in the somewhat louche Termini station area, and among the imposing palazzi flanking the presidential palace.
Nerva Boutique Hotel
Rome, Italy
9Telegraph expert rating
Absolutely charming. That’s the overriding impression left behind by a stay at this cute, friendly three-star hotel which nestles right up against the Forum. There’s little in the way of communal spaces except a petite bar and breakfast room, but from the cobbled street outside to the warm, contemporary interior design, everything seems planned to make one feel that Rome is as much a village as a metropolis. Rooms are more five-star than three, with chic check prints, vibrant colour schemes and furnishings by Dedar, Gervasoni and other Italian style-blazers. Read expert review From £81 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Villa Spalletti Trivelli
Rome, Italy
9Telegraph expert rating
Imagine having an antique- and art-stuffed palazzo, complete with elegant formal garden, that has been in your family for over a century – a place with opulent interiors of such historic significance that they are listed by the Italian heritage ministry. Well, you do – at least for the duration of your stay – at Villa Spalletti Trivelli. The 12 first-floor bedrooms are warm and welcoming with their rich fabrics, pastel-hued walls and bedcovers, Fiandra linen sheets and alpaca or cashmere throws. Read expert review From £396 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Residenze Argileto
Rome, Italy
8Telegraph expert rating
In Italy, ‘Residenze’ suggests long-stay apartments – and in a previous incarnation, that’s just what this central perch inside an 18th-century townhouse offered – but these days, it’s a hotel by any other name, with a clean, contemporary feel. It’s perfectly suited for savvy independent travellers who want a central location and like the neighbourhood. The 20 air-conditioned rooms are done out in a pleasant contemporary style, with boxy cast-iron four-poster bed frames, colourful textiles and contemporary art works. Read expert review From £75 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Hotel Lancelot
Rome, Italy
8Telegraph expert rating
It's the people rather than décor or food that really makes the Lancelot stand out, giving it its upmarket pensione vibe: guests are treated like friends of the family. The décor is chintzy but charming, sort of Last-Days-of-the-Raj in Rome, with a few genuinely elegant antique pieces scattered among the reproductions, and a fine Art Deco-era staircase. There’s a certain charm to the bedrooms’ old-school décor, and some have little balconies. There’s also a lovely garden patio with bar service. Read expert review From £72 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Celio
Busy thoroughfares funnelling traffic around the Colosseum delimit the villagey inner-city island called Il Celio. Nestled around the hill (one of the Seven) of the same name, this small grid of narrow streets mixes a very residential feel with a handful of fascinating early churches, a lively restaurant scene and some of the city’s buzziest gay bars. And of course there’s the Caelian hill itself, home to a pretty, leafy public park.
Hotel Celio
Rome, Italy
7Telegraph expert rating
Hotel Celio has great real estate just behind the Colosseum and within walking distant to all of Rome’s major sites. Playful, vintage Rome is the underlying theme. The décor harkens Rome of yesteryear with wood panelling, Venetian glass, period wallpaper and marble. Additionally, the hotel pays homage to the Eternal City's history with ceiling frescoes reminiscent of the lavish rooms of Ancient Rome’s elite. Each of the Hotel Celio’s 20 rooms is charming, with a prevalence for Renaissance revival in its décor. Read expert review From £93 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Hotel Palazzo Manfredi
Rome, Italy
8Telegraph expert rating
It makes no secret of its luxury cachet, this 16-room gem so close to the Colosseum that you can almost hear the lions roar. From the moment you step through the discreet door to be greeted like visiting royalty, the Manfredi dazzles with its tastefully glamorous décor and stunning views. Rooms are done out in a fairly masculine style with an autumnal palette, the rooms feel a little Parisian at times, though details like repro classical busts, or the playful Palladian wallpaper in the Executive Rooms, help to ground one in the Eternal City. Read expert review From £279 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Spanish Steps
When European travellers of old pitched up in Rome on their Grand Tour, this neat triangle of streets was their neighbourhood of choice. Where artists’ models waited on the Spanish Steps for the chance to grace a maestro’s canvas, latter-day tourists wield selfie-sticks. But the area continues to attract big-spending visitors to its high-density designer boutiques – and less prodigal shoppers to the high-street outlets along Via del Corso.
Crossing Condotti
Rome, Italy
9Telegraph expert rating
This dinky guest house is on the first floor of an 18th-century townhouse in the heart of the fashion shopping district. Essentially a centro storico apartment converted into a charmingly elegant guest house, with antique-moderne design straight out of a coffee table book. The exposed wooden beams, antiquarian oil paintings and family silver lend class and tone. All rooms feature warm parquet floors, a sprinkle of antique furniture, paintings and prints, crisp white cotton sheets and duvets, and bold, striped fabrics. Read expert review From £225 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Portrait Roma
Rome, Italy
8Telegraph expert rating
Portrait Roma is just a short sashay from the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain. The style is suave and very private: think of it as a high-class residence rather than a hotel. Michele Bonan’s design scheme is classic modern with splashes of extravagant colour. The Ferragamo tie-in (the hotel group is owned by the family) is kept discreet – there are shoe patterns on the silk curtain lining, and framed sketches from the company’s archives in the corridors. When they say suites, they mean suites: even the entry-level Superiors are spacious. Read expert review From £585 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Babuino 181
Rome, Italy
9Telegraph expert rating
A home away from home, especially when put together by a fabulous Italian man who has lived in the area for decades. Babuino 181 owner, Alberto Moncada di Paternò, and one of his well-informed concierges skip formalities and welcome guests in a chic mezzanine lounge. The intimate vibe is emulated in Babuino 181’s Back-to-the-Future décor. The 14 rooms and suites are dreamy hideouts of Frette linens, king-sized beds, comfortable couches, large windows, and natural woods. Read expert review From £207 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Pantheon & Navona
Pell-mell Medieval alleyways open up into dazzling piazzas in this centralissimo area of surprising contrasts. Piazza Navona is Rome’s pièce de résistance, Bernini’s Four Rivers fountains setting a benchmark for Baroque drama. Tourist crowds flock to the piazza, the nearby Pantheon, and any number of art-filled churches. But locals too haunt the area, for its restaurants, its delightful shops and the sophisticated bar scene around Via della Pace.
G Rough Rome
Rome, Italy
8Telegraph expert rating
It’s molto, molto urban hipster: walk in with trousers cut a bit too short, a braided beard and the latest issue of Monocle and you’ll blend right in. That said, the design scheme, curated by Giorgia Cerulli, will appeal to anyone who appreciates adventurous modernism and can tell their Giò Ponti chairs from their Joe Colombo lamps. With its intimate service, trendy ground-floor bar and tall, two-suites-per-floor groundplan, there’s something very clubbish and insidery about the place. Read expert review From £353 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Albergo del Senato
Rome, Italy
8Telegraph expert rating
The Del Senato is tucked away by the side of the Pantheon, in the heart of Old Rome. It’s the classic antique-filled traditional Roman hotel, except that where some of its rivals are dusty and dowdy, this is elegant, highly-polished and full of fresh flowers. All rooms are elegantly decorated with polished parquet floors, wall-coverings in warm silk brocade and graceful antique furniture. The superior doubles have good views over the Pantheon and the little piazza in front. Read expert review From £162 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Fiori & Farnese
Lying south of thundering Corso Vittorio, this area epitomises Rome’s amazing ability to inhabit its own history. Sure, there’s splendour in Piazza Farnese, but the morning market in Campo de’ Fiori still attracts hard-bargaining old ladies; and though there are plenty of smart boutiques, there are also dark workshops of artisans making and mending as they would have done in the Middle Ages. In the Ghetto, Rome’s millennia-old Jewish community still thrives.
Boutique Hotel Campo de' Fiori
Rome, Italy
8Telegraph expert rating
It’s just around the corner from the piazza of the same name – one of Rome’s most picturesque, and the site of a colourful morning produce market. Elements of Venice and Paris, as well as the Eternal City, are thown into the hotel’s warm, extrovert design mix, which uses marble, antiques, terracotta tiles, chandeliers, velvet and silk brocades and Mediterranean hues on the sponged walls to create an intimate, romantic refuge from the bustle outside. Breakfast is a generous spread, and there’s a lovely roof terrace where you can fix your own aperitivi. Read expert review From £111 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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D.O.M. Hotel
Rome, Italy
8Telegraph expert rating
Via Giulia could hardly be more central. There’s a Baroque masculinity to D.O.M’s design scheme, which has taken a former monastery – with many of its Latin marble inscriptions still in situ – and turned it into an intimate, romantic bolthole for stylish travellers. Huge mirrors, hunting trophies, retro furnishings covered in burnished velvet, theatrical chandeliers, oversized wax candles and others set the tone. All rooms give on to Via Giulia – a reasonably quiet, cobbled street in a limited traffic zone. Read expert review From £233 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Trastevere
Across the river, on the Tiber’s right bank, Trastevere is a district of two halves. West of Viale Trastevere, visitors flock in huge droves to its oh-so-picturesque alleys and gorgeous central square with ancient church by day, and to its oh-so-buzzing bars and restaurants by night. East of the divide is altogether quieter, more contemplative: equally lovely, and also with fascinating churches and venerable, wisteria-covered palazzi, it’s a calmer version of picture-perfect Rome.
Hotel Santa Maria
Rome, Italy
8Telegraph expert rating
Perhaps the most unusual thing about the place is that it consists of a group of single or two-storey pavilions in a garden setting – this is in an area where the default apartment block is at least six floors high. The key feature is the garden – a delightful gravel-strewn area under citrus trees, with plenty of corners where you can relax with a good book and a glass of wine. In a way, it all feels a little like a rural agriturismo in the heart of the city. With their ochre walls and summery colour schemes, the bedrooms are bright and simple. Read expert review From £88 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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VOI Hotel Donna Camilla Savelli
Rome, Italy
7Telegraph expert rating
This Borromini-designed monastery is now an 80-room hotel, offering a calm oasis in the heart of Rome. History oozes from its vaulted frescoed ceilings, on-site Baroque church and peaceful garden restaurant. With amazing city views, it makes for an ideal place to unwind. The style is monastery minimalist, with high vaulted ceilings, terracotta floors, Travertine tiles and not a modern designer in sight. Read expert review From £89 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Gran Meliá Rome
Rome, Italy
9Telegraph expert rating
The Gran Melia Villa Agrippina is in the happy medium of calm and chaos. It’s aesthetic can best be described as Miami-meets-Renaissance-Rome. Rooms, reception and lounge areas are the harmonious balance of vintage Italian and Spanish design with contemporary flair. Overall, the feeling of the hotel is light and airy, thanks to the large windows, glass panelling and white colour that dominates all areas, which are accented elegant modern Murano chandeliers and contemporary art pieces. Read expert review From £238 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
