I’m sure you must have noticed (I may have mentioned once or twice!) that I’ve recently been away in Italy. Myself and W visited Rome and Venice and as we were on a bit of a restricted budget I thought I’d review our hotels.
I absolutely loved our accommodation in Rome. Clean, quirky, and in a pretty great location. We were just three minutes walk away from the Colosseum, and within easy reach of the main train station, but it was in a very quiet residential street.
Retrome Colosseum Garden is actually a not-quite-hotel, not-really-apartments sort of place. Set up in a residential building, they own a few floors, with a reception set up in a little building out back. The reception is only open at certain times so check-in needs to be arranged in advance – but with our arrival in Rome timed at midday this wasn’t a problem for us. Our room wasn’t qute ready on arrival but we were offered drinks, given a verbal tour of the local area, recommendations of places to eat and a well-needed sit down. The reception area is pretty cool too!
Our room was quite spacious, minimal in terms of furniture, cool retro decorations and a floor that hurt your eyes in the morning (I did love it though!). The bathroom was teeny tiny and the one little let-down of the place – that and only having four coat hangers.
The bed was spectacularly comfy, and huge. Definitely plenty of space! Both the mattress and pillows were memory foam, ensuring a fabulous night’s sleep…when we hadn’t overindulged with too much food and wine.
The room was equipped with a smart TV, enabling instant messaging to the staff if we needed anything, as well as facebook access, maps, games and standard TV channels. I developed a bit of a thing for the Italian version of MTV!
Breakfast was €7 per person, via purchase of a voucher to be redeemed in a local cafe. We did the first day and, whilst it was great value, we found that it just gave way too much food. The next days we went to the cafe and just purchased what we felt like – which ended up coming to less than €5 for the two of us. Where can I get a €0.80 cappuccino in the UK?! We weren’t too impressed to find out that this cafe doesn’t open on a Sunday morning (glad we didn’t purchase a voucher!), but no matter – we popped to the supermarket, found some little pastries, and retired to Retrome’s terrace along with fresh milk (I never worked out how to use the coffee machine) and fruit.Turned out the pastries were full of nutella, crispy, and absolutely delicious!
Friendly staff, a clean and central base, and something slightly different, I really would recommend this hotel. And definitely for the price – in total the cost came to £220 for 3 nights (two people) which is an absolute bargain, especially in June!
Have your ever been to Rome? Do you like quirky hotels or something more traditional?
