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 (EUR618.18), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was Palazzo Ripetta, a historic house along one of the oldest streets in the city that’s been a convent, shelter and boarding school over the centuries. The restoration of this 17th-century complex aimed to give back the buildings to Rome – and these days, it’s a refuge of an altogether more glamorous sort, with an art collection spanning classic to contemporary artefacts, a hidden patio for shaded breakfasts and cooling cocktails (plus a glimpse of a third-century sarcophagus), and a restaurant fit for an emperor.
Double rooms from £586.66 (€680), 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 breakfast.
Also
Palazzo Ripetta is accessible for disabled guests.
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout. In rooms: Nespresso coffee machine, TV, soundbar and Ortigia bath products from Sicily.
Our favourite rooms
For a little more space, go for one of Palazzo Ripetta’s Prestige Rooms. And book wisely if a bath tub’s a dealbreaker, since only a few, including our personal fave 307, have one.
Spa
There's no spa, but massages can be arranged in your room on request.
Packing tips
A thirst for knowledge.
Also
There may be lots of museums and galleries awaiting your attention outside, but your cultural journey can start right here at the hotel, since it has its own art collection, with ancient Roman pieces, gilded sculptures from the Seventies and works by arti
All ages are welcome. Some rooms have space for a cot to be added and there are options with kitchenettes, too. Babysitting is available until midnight for €40 an hour.
Sustainability efforts
Everything from the wine to the building materials has been sourced within Italy, including bath products from the Sicily-based brand Ortigia. The hotel has signed the Unesco Sustainable Tourism Pledge and is part of the Green Key programme.
Sit out on the peaceful patio, admiring the centuries-old sarcophagus-slash-fountain.
Dress Code
Fine vintage.
Hotel restaurant
There are two restaurants at the palazzo: the more formal San Baylon and the relaxed outdoor Piazzetta Ripetta. At the former, you can expect dishes such as lamb with a pistachio and mustard crust, turbot with roast artichokes and a citrusy sauce, and glazed beef with cauliflower and creamy (courtesy of some horseradish) potatoes. At Piazzetta Ripetta, you can do as the Romans do, with a selection of pastas and crudi, or hold out until aperitivo o'clock (starting late afternoon, daily). There’s also the Sala Colonna, where breakfasts (largely consisting of house-made pastries and good coffee) are served.
Hotel bar
Baylon will provide you with cicchetti and cocktails until midnight; we're sipping a Zabaylòn (rum, pineapple, lime and chocolate bitters).
Last orders
San Baylon serves breakfast from 7am to 10.30am and an all-day menu from noon until 11pm. Piazzetta Ripetta is open for breakfast between 7am and 10.30am, lunch from noon until 3pm, afternoon tea from 3pm to 6pm and dinner between 7pm and 11pm.
Palazzo Ripetta is in the centre of Rome, a few blocks from the banks of the Tiber and within a short walk of Piazza del Popolo and the Spanish Steps.
Planes
Rome’s Fiumicino airport is a traffic-dependent 40-minute drive from the palazzo. Hotel-arranged transfers cost from €90 each way. Landing at Ciampino is also an option.
Trains
The nearest metro stations are Spagna and Flaminio–Piazza del Popolo, both of which are on Line A. From Rome’s main rail station Termini, it’s a 15-minute drive to the hotel.
Automobiles
You won’t need wheels with a setting this central – stash them away at Vantaggio car park for €40 a day.
Worth getting out of bed for
Palazzo Ripetta has a patio for cooling off on during Rome’s sticky summer days, as well as a rather impressive art collection spanning Roman artefacts to Seventies sculptures, all of which are helpfully labelled so you can conduct your own tour. The city’s mega-sights (from the Colosseum and the rest of the Forum, to the Spanish Steps and the Villa Borghese) need no introduction – and even an aimless stroll through this outdoor museum of a city will reward you. Via Ripetta is one of the oldest streets in Rome, with lots of ateliers, galleries and academies of fine art and music still the palazzo’s neighbours.
Local restaurants
If you’re planning on a self-induced carb coma, La Buca di Ripetta is the pasta palace for you, a handy 30-second slump away from your bed. At Dillà, elevated takes on Roman classics (cacio e pepe, fried artichokes and ravioli with a daily-changing filling) await.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this boutique hotel in Italy and unpacked their cacio e pepe, a full account of their city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Palazzo Ripetta in Rome…
You’re never far from antiquity in Rome. Case in point: Palazzo Ripetta’s repurposed marble sarcophagus from the 3rd century, now a fountain casually gracing the patio. The 17th-century complex has once again been restored for the people of Rome, giving them yet more history to beam about. The first round of renovations, in the 1960s, were carried out by leading Italian architect Luigi Moretti, who also designed Washington DC’s Watergate complex.
In keeping with its outdoor museum of a setting (AKA Rome), Palazzo Ripetta has artefacts and artworks on every corner. The Arnaldo Pomodoro piece in the entrance is one of just a handful in the world; the Vatican Museum has one, too. Your neighbours are galleries, ateliers and fine art and music academies, as well as – more famously – Piazza del Popolo and the Spanish Steps. It’s also close to Fellini favourite, Via Margutta, of Roman Holiday fame. Where did we put the Vespa?
