Six Senses Rome

Rome’s heaving, swarming with tourists. The Pope’s just popped his velvet clogs, the landmark fanfare is in full swing, and also, it’s June.

Brash tour guides flap their laminated signs in my beading face as I thunder past, suitcase wheels caught in the Roman cobbles, bag chafing against my pounding chest. It’s hot.

The airport taxi queue snaked back miles, quickly dashing American arrivals’ Dolce Vita fantasies and forcing me to take the train (pretty simple), then walk (not so simple), as the taxi queue at Roma Termini is just as bad. To conclude, my entrance into Six Senses Rome is far from chic.

A somewhat subtle presence next to San Marcello al Corso’s thumping Baroque façade, the hotel occupies the grand bones of 15th-century Palazzo Salviati Cesi Mellini within the same shallow piazza — then a bank, now a playground for Patricia Urquiola’s hip-luxe design.

Statement steel girders criss-cross a courtyard, chiming with the tan and caramel contemporary scene beneath them, and setting indoor-outdoor flow. Her fresh theme strikes somewhere between the horse-bust statue perched below my exotic welcome drink and the chunky, curved marble bar. The main hallway snaps guests out of Urquiola’s low-slung Seventies and back into the building’s banking era with an infinite and exquisite veiny marble staircase. Upstairs, room walls forego the usual oversize prints for rhythmic travertine stone detail. I doff my cap to the caramel wood-panelling for softening the space, one I’m fast cooling down in with freshly squeezed lemon juice and an icy flannel.

Yes, you can open the windows onto the peaceful courtyard (from my third-floor room at least), but it’s more a softly lit, hunkering-down, sleep-oriented space than somewhere you’d gleefully linger in for hours. Which is no bad thing when you consider its location, set back from Via del Corso; and its rooftop, Notos, which has undeniably slotted itself into Rome’s top five tetti.

Having showered off the travel cortisol in the angular travertine bathroom and inspected the perfectly formed bar (all complimentary, of course), I find myself up here, soaking in Rome’s golden hour to the velvety croon of a live band. Everything is doused in soft, nostalgic light — the ice in my drink flashes sequins, Pucci and Missoni dresses are pressed into the surrounding landmark haze like a retro stamp, and the Texan couple sat opposite me place bets on whether my date will show up. My pidgin-Italian exchange with the waiters has emboldened them to deliberate above a whisper. I’m inclined to drag out their fun game, and devour more oysters, cod croquettes and Iberican ham, but I have a black-tie ball to attend, and the Circolo della Caccia members' club at Palazzo Borghese doesn’t take well to lateness (even Roman-flavour time-keeping).

It’s only when leaving the serene confines of Six Senses Rome’s modernist courtyards and pietro-aplenty quarters, and diving into Rome’s touristy hub, that you fully appreciate the design triumph. There is a platform nine-and-three-quarters quality to it as you slip off the Eternal City’s swarming thoroughfare into a haven of calm, understated-luxe clothing, good manners and sky-high service standards.

And if ever there was a hotel to tumble into after a well-watered gala… Peeling off my heels and gown, I tuck into whatever was left of the freakishly soft home-baked cookies, rehydrate with mint-infused water and shower to a gentle buzz in the courtyard below (Six Senses' wellbeing mantra doesn’t outlaw a good time).

An organic mattress and cool, caramel-coloured sheets soon engulf me — I swipe through the pillows for my ideal sleep companion and wake up (b**ger) beyond the breakfast deadline (11am). Yes, I’m one hour ahead of UK time, but since having children, my body has dramatically ripped itself out of deep sleep at 7am on the dot (when my kids typically begin yelling from their bedroom as if they’re stranded at sea).

For a night owl, this has been nothing short of debilitating. So the delicious feeling of an 11am wake up is, on this occasion (sorry, Six Senses), worth skipping the salmon-bagel and cold-chia breakfast sitting for. I study the pillow menu and mattress structure as a delirious flyer would a valium pot for dosage. I’ve reviewed hundreds of hotels and the main functions (ample rest, good food, warm service) are too often lost amid the gazillion-pound makeovers and glitzy facilities. Not here. Six Senses handed a young, frazzled working mother the ultimate gift, 10 hours of undisturbed sleep in high-season Rome. Molto ben fatto.

The organic, sun-yellow eggs on thick toast arrive without a whiff of judgement at 11.30am, after I've showered once more to the soothing clang of the courtyard church bells. This, a Roman pace of morning and my creamy-stone surrounds must have something to do with the overwhelming sense of calm washing over me; that, layered on with a brief, delicious hiatus from motherhood.

Like visiting your Granny while stricken with a stinking cold, Six Senses nurses you back to rude health with its signature blend of ancient know-how and cutting-edge facilities. The thermal pools on the second floor are Granny’s remedial chicken soup under a cottage quilt — an age-old healing method that seeps into your bones and, my God, smell divine. The swirl and echo of water and stone, of steam and gurgle, send you into that slow-motion dimension — no walking, solely floating, slinking around like a nymph past stone busts and diverse pool temperatures.

I had a memorable pumelling here two years ago when the hotel was barely open, the rooftop still resembling a corporate smokers' sky-high sanctuary, the ‘guests’ recognisable as a few fellow travel writers. My masseur applied his strength to a muscular tangle, and sent me into a state of blissful delirium through hot and cold flannels, and a neck and head massage technique worth marrying for. ‘It’s a real triumph for Six Senses that they’ve managed to reconcile their remote, nature-first, haute-wellness hallmark with one of Europe’s most tourist-riddled cities,' I ruminated as I slumped still further into NSDR.

Lunch for one? Yes, heaven. The courtyard’s sunlight wraps my pale shoulders as I plump for one final club sandwich dotted in Hollandaise sauce like a Yayoi Kusama installation. It’s so wildly tasty, and the terracotta table beneath so hypnotising, that I lose track of time, place, reality.

Mrs Wikeley, your taxi is here, your bags are ready.

Well, at least my exit was chic.