If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR1,440.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
It’s a family affair at Hotel de la Ville in Rome, another hit brought to you by the fabulous Fortes: the design, spa products and business nouse are all the brainchild of one of the clan. These hotelier heroes have done it again, with a top-of-the-Spanish-Steps setting, super spa and buzzy rooftop bar that’s possibly the best place for terracotta-tile fans to admire the local buildings – as well as the major monuments parading in front of you. The rooms are colourful and cosy, with textured wallpaper, carved mirrors and emperor busts, along with a supersize terrace if you’ve booked wisely.
Noon, but flexible for a fee. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £1348.06 (€1,584), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €10.00 per person per night on check-out.
More details
Rates usually include an American buffet breakfast.
Also
All communal areas can be accessed by wheelchair and there are some specially adapted rooms.
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout, gym. In rooms: smart TV, air-conditioning, minibar, free bottled water, tea-making kit, Illy coffee machine and Forte Organics bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Some of the rooms overlook the inner courtyard, so if a room with a (Roman) view is a dealbreaker, be sure to book a street-facing suite. We rate the Deluxe Room with Panoramic View batch, mostly because you can see most of the major monuments just by gazing out of your window. If you’ve got a budget to blow, go for one of the suites with a super-size terrace; the Roman-rooftop vistas are worth every extra Euro.
Spa
The orange-blossom-scented De la Ville spa is a slice of Sicily in Rome, mostly due to the organic botanicals plucked straight from sister property Verdura Resort’s farm on the Italian isle. There are six treatment rooms, a rasul mud room, a salt room and an ice fountain, as well as hydrotherapy and plunge pools. Personal trainers are available, and regular fitness classes are held.
Packing tips
This may be the home of the handmade leather shoe (the entire landmass is shaped like a knee-high stiletto, people), but you’ll be better off bringing your Supergas for hitting these landmark-studded streets.
Also
The hotel is the latest in the Rocco Forte family, a stylish sister to Verdura Resort in Sicily and Masseria Torre Maizza in Puglia.
Children
All ages are welcome. Extra beds and cots can be added to all rooms, and several can interconnect for families. Babysitting is available with three days’ notice for €25 an hour (three-hour minimum) for two children. The hotel has a handful of pushchairs.
Choose a corner table at Mosaico for the most privacy; and watch the (stylish Roman) world go by from a window table at Da Sistina. At Julep, sit up at the bar to watch the masterful mixology taking place.
Dress Code
It’s Italy, where effortless style is in people’s DNA – if in doubt, go for black.
Hotel restaurant
Mosaico has a Michelin-starred chef at its helm, cranking out Roman classics, such as artichokes a whole lot of ways (raw, fried, pickled), along with dishes like fava beans with lemon cream, aubergine, chickpea and mint dumplings, and deep-fried baby prawns – and a wood-fired oven for freshly baked focaccia. The parquet-floored Da Sistina takes its cue from a trad trattoria: expect more Roman favourites (tripe, veal), perfect pasta and a super-chic crowd.
Hotel bar
Cielo is the hotel’s rooftop bar, where you can enjoy potent negronis and wide-ranging views of Rome, which sounds like la dolce vita to us. Back at base level, Julep has a whole host of vermouth, herbs and spices ready to mix up your dream cocktail.
Last orders
Breakfast is served between 7am and 10.30am.
Room service
There’s a rotating series of menus (all-day, lunch, night) to order from in-room, along with a child-friendly one.
Hotel de la Ville is in the centre of Rome, at the top of the Spanish Steps.
Planes
Both of the city’s airports are within an hour of the hotel: Fiumicino is an hour away, and Ciampino 45 minutes. Hotel transfers start from €100 each way (to either).
Trains
Rome’s rail hub, Termini, is around 15 minutes from the hotel. From here, high-speed train services will whisk you to other cities, including Florence, Milan, Venice and Naples. Hotel transfers in a Merc cost from €100 each way.
Automobiles
Driving in Rome is for the seasoned, swear-word–happy driver only and you won’t need wheels with a setting this central. Valet parking at the hotel costs €60 a night.
Worth getting out of bed for
The Eternal City and its walking museum of tourist-approved big-hitters (the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain and co) are on your doorstep – and if you’ve wisely opted for a terrace-enhanced room, you’ll be able to glimpse a couple of cupolas without even leaving it. And if you haven’t, there’s always the rooftop bar. This is a city of sightseeing hits, whether you want to pretend to be Russell Crowe inside the Colosseum and Roman Forum, whizz around on a Vespa à la Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain to ensure your return to Rome or just flex some plastic in the designer boutiques of the Via Condotti. The Villa Borghese gardens and museums are just behind the hotel. The world’s tiniest principality might be teeming with crowds during the day, but on Friday evenings between April and October you can tour the Vatican and Sistine Chapel with hopefully fewer people by night.
Local restaurants
What do you get when you cross a traditional taverna with a half-British, Italian-born chef? Meet Dillà, a charming restaurant on Via Mario de’ Fiori, where classic Roman dishes are given a little English influence. If you’ve called in for lunch, swing by neighbouring sister bakery La Buvette to stockpile pastries for the afternoon lull. On Via del Politeama in Trastevere, try Taverna Trilussawhere you can enjoy typical Roman fare (bonus: lots of it is deep-fried) in a lively, local-populated setting. Work up an appetite shopping in the salumeria, deli and wine cellar at Rosciolion Via dei Giubbonari, before settling down for a supper of burrata from Puglia, fried anchovies, house-made foie gras and baby squid with garlic and cauliflower mash.
Local bars
Head to the tiered Le Jardin bar on Via del Babuino for aperitivo hour in a magical setting where the greats have got tipsy before you (Hemingway, Diaghilev and Picasso are former patrons).
The last 10 minutes of the taxi ride from the airport is the perfect overture to our arrival at the Hotel de la Ville. As soon as we enter the Eternal City, the whirlwind of historical sites begins. Amid the pine trees and magnificent architecture we mistakenly point out the Colosseum and the taxi driver cuts off the animated phone call to his wife to correct us and engage in a patriotic tour of the city. He gives us historical backdrops to all subsequent buildings, tells us what to see, where to eat and makes us promise not to enter another vehicle until we are on our return journey home. ‘A good pair of legs and a bottle of water are all you need for Rome,’ he declares. Forty-eight hours of Roman magic has officially begun.
Hotel de la Ville is a luxurious overload to the senses and the perfect Rome getaway. When you’re taking a long-overdue, children-free, puppy-free European city break with your partner, every second counts, and this trip did not disappoint. As we sweep into via Sistina and pull up outside the hotel, the smiling doorman introduces himself and offers to carry my shoulder bag inside. I imagine he is used to slightly more extravagant packing. Stepping inside the lobby the overload of senses continues but in the most eclectic and beautifully curated way. There’s marble, roman columns, mirrors, black and white geometric floors, luxurious plant displays… a feast for the eyes. At the front desk we’re told we’ve been upgraded to a Junior Suite and are escorted to our room by the delightful, multi-lingual Louis, a student from Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (ranked the best hospitality management school in the world).
We come out of the lift and wind our way down the plush red hallways, flanked by sculptures of muscled torsos and framed pictures. Louis gives us the history of the hotel, and of the eclectic Grand Tour-inspired redesign by architect Tommaso Ziffer and interiors doyenne Olga Polizzi. The room is exactly how you imagine a film set for a Rome hotel would look like. Fresh flowers, simple and clean parquet flooring, an exquisite monochrome marble bathroom, wardrobes with laser-cut wooden inlays, a huge crisply made bed with velvet headboard and lamps in various hues of green, simple black cast iron chandelier, and the best bit: three sets of curtain-flanked doors leading to our private terracotta terrace. I can’t stop smiling.
Louis leaves the room and we immediately make ourselves a coffee with the Illy machine, and sit out on the terrace. It’s part of the main inner courtyard and is overlooked by pretty much every room, but it’s a beautiful sight – windows and balconies adorned with window boxes, and iconic red and white striped umbrellas. My husband heads down to the spa for a couple of hours while I send off some files for a work deadline. Working here does not feel like work. The doorbell rings within 15 minutes and a complimentary bottle of champagne is delivered with a handwritten card complete with a quote from Goethe.
It’s 4.30pm and just as I close my laptop my husband floats back in wearing the hotel robe and bamboo flip-flops. The toxins he’s disposed of in the spa are topped back up as we open the champagne. We can’t stop giggling.
We shower and dress and head out onto the streets. Hotel de La Ville is located right at the top of the Spanish Steps, in the centre of Centro Storico. It doesn’t take us long to do a circuit of some of the sites – indeed, Rome is made for walking. We battle our way through hordes of tourists at the Trevi Fountain to the quieter backstreets where we find a beautiful restaurant serving calves liver and truffle pasta plus the most delicious tomatoes and carafe of red wine.
After three hours of walking, eating and drinking we’re ready to head back to the hotel to watch the sunset from the Cielo Terrace rooftop bar. It feels cosy and vibrant at the same time – a DJ plays music which is fun and not too loud, most tables are full with people of all ages eating, drinking and talking. I spy a delicious looking burrata salad and some lobster being delivered to the table next to us where two chic women are sitting, but our stomachs are full. We opt for the cocktail menu because that’s what the setting dictates, and sample a few delicious treats from the signature cocktails menu, all named after Roman Gods.
Breakfast is outside on the main terrace served on green-and-white-striped china. I have burrata cheese with anchovies and green tomatoes, then order a poached egg from the menu with a double espresso, with a homemade doughnut to finish. Everything, especially the tomatoes, tastes heavenly.
The excellent night’s sleep and breakfast sets us up for a day of walking. Our hotel room comes with a ticket to a choice of museums and we opt for the Palazzo Barberini and Galleria Corsini. The hotel has a very helpful Whatsapp service, and Laura from the concierge books us in with time slots and tickets to both.
Twenty thousand steps later we return to the hotel. The room is spotless, the coffee machine replenished, the bathroom restocked with delicious Irena Forte products and most impressively, one of the curtain rails my husband embarrassingly pulled down in an energetic attempt to let in morning sunlight, is miraculously fixed as if nothing happened. We marvel at the joys of hotel living.
We head down for two hours in the spa, switching between the steam room, ice packs for the face, plunge pool and hydrotherapy whirlpool. I have a mild phobia of hotel pools but this feels different. It feels small and private, beautifully laid out with changing rooms with private showers, very clean and with flattering lighting. The whole space is only occupied by us and two other people, hosted by the charming Irena. We book in for a massage the following morning.
After two hours of spa indulgence we shower and change in the room and then head out to dinner. We’re unable to get into our first choice Al Moro, so the concierge gives us several recommendations (I keep a note of them for future visits): Hostaria Da Pietro (Roman); Tullio (Tuscan and Italian); Alfredo alla Scrofa (Italian), and Nino (Tuscan). We opt for Da Pietro which is a huge success. Sitting in the back streets of Rome we drink Aperol Spritz followed by red wine, eating homemade truffle pasta and delicious steak with green chard.
The following morning, after another relaxed sumptuous outdoor breakfast we head back down to the spa and reflect upon our stay. The hotel brings together the history and opulence of Rome. The staff are impeccable and you feel the pride and connection to not only the hotel but also to the city and its history. We felt completely indulged.
As we land back in the UK the real world kicks in. The opulent velvet, marble columns and muscular torsos have been replaced by the shabby blue of the Southeastern train network filled with weekenders returning home. The glamour has most certainly gone, but the warm glow of the weekend rests somewhere deep within us, and indeed lasts for a few weeks. we’re already planning our next trip away.
