Hotels near Rome

Also outside the center (but a quick bus or taxi ride away) are several hotels along via Nomentana, a wide tree lined boulevard bordered by parks and private villas. Two hotels are the best in the area:

Villa delle Rose is a venerable old villa set back from the avenue with a tranquil, leafy garden and a gurgling goldfish pool. Once the residence of a series of wealthy Roman families who built their villas on what was then the outskirts of the city, Villa delle Rose has kept some of that atmosphere in its rooms and parlors.

Hotel Villa Del Parco is a converted 19thcentury villa set back from the street by a tree lined drive, which gives it the air of a Mediterranean country house. The cozily furnished rooms have high ceilings and large double door windows. In addition, it offers air conditioning, refrigerator, color 1Vs, free parking, and a garden where breakfast is served. For joggers there is the ample Villa Torlonia park next door.

Budget choices: The 22 room Pensione Parlamento, off the central via del Corso, has the kind of relaxed, rundown atmosphere that some people find charming, and that (along with its rooftop terrace) has made it a favorite among expatriates.

If you are planning to spend at least a week in Rome, you should look into staying in a residence instead of a hotel or pensione. Residences are mini apartments that include an outfitted kitchen, a bedroom and bath, and a parlor. The advantages are that you can have breakfast whenever you want, cook your own simple meals, and entertain guests in a living room instead of a bedroom. During the off season, many residences let you stay for less than a week.

The best in this category is the Palazzo aI Velabro, a vine covered palazzo at the bottom of the Palatine Hill on a quiet street between the Tiber and the Circus Maximus (where you can go jogging). The 35 mini apartments have a modern, functional decor, and some of them have terraces that over look a lush inner courtyard that has the Palatine Hill as a backdrop.
Ripa Residence in Trastevere is next door to Rome's renowned Sunday morning flea market. It offers monthly as well as weekly rates and boasts all the comforts of a hotel plus the privacy of your own home. The comforts do not include an iota of aesthetic charm and the (sometimes noisy) dog pound is nearby, but the convenience, location, and price may entice you to ignore the downside. Via deg Ji Orti di Trastevere 1, 00153; Tel: 58611; Fax: 5814550. U,OOO,OOO a week; t2,700,000 a month. Monasteries and Convents
Another alternative to commercial hotels is a monastery or convent.

These are not former houses of worship that have been converted into trendy hotels, but religious communi ties that take in guests for a nominal fee (no credit cards) that sometimes includes meals. Accommodations are spartan but immaculate. Some monasteries have an 11:00 P.M. cur few, but the ones listed here give guests their own keys, so they are free to come and go as they wish .' The following accept families as well as single men and women of any or no faith.

The Franciscan Sisters of Atonement is an American or der of nuns whose motherhouse is in Garrison, New York. All rooms have private baths; there is a dining room; and parking is available. There is also a spacious pine shaded garden to stroll about in. (This convent is recommended by the Vatican City Tourist Information Office.)
The Convent of Santa Brigida is in one of Rome's most beautiful Renaissance piazzas piazza Farnese. The rooms are more expensive than at the other religious establish ments that lodge guests but cheaper than in a hotel. Guests must eat at least one meal here. The roomsall with private bathsare modest and spotlessly clean. The guest house is operated by an order of Swedish sisters who also have guest houses in Farfa and Assisi.

The Casa di Santa Francesca Romana is in the heart of Rome's bohemian quarter Trasteverea short distance from the Tiber Island. The pensione is housed in what was once a noble Roman family's vast palazzo, and it offers hospitality to groups, families, or individuals in single, dou ble, or triple rooms with private baths. There is central heating (but no air conditioning), an elevator, and a cool inner courtyard.

The Casa Kolbe at the foot of the Palatine is a religious guest house that caters mainly to groups of pilgrims, but it sometimes has vacancies. The rooms are very basic, but the location is perfect and the public rooms and garden are quiet and relaxing.
Despite the abundance of roads leading to Rome, remark ably few culinary influences have flowed into or out of the Eternal City in its more than 2,000 years of existence. The sprinkling of nonItalian restaurants in the capital today (mostly Chinese) are looked upon with suspicion (and rightly so), while the others offer more or less the same Roman standards, none of which with the possible excep tion of spaghetti alia carbonarahas ever achieved international recognition. The result is that although it is rare to eat badly in Rome, it is also true that the food is not very exciting unless you count knuckles, shanks, and tails among the world's epicurean delights.

Roman cooking, like the people who created it, is simple, straightforward, and unpretentious: In a word, it is eminently practicalas befits a people better at road construe tion and plumbing than at painting or sculpture. It doesn't bother with subtle cream sauces or expensive ingredients like truffles because it didn't come out of the kitchens of the emperors or the popes, but out of the cucina poverathe good, solid home cooking of the common people.

This characteristic still survives in the plain and hearty Roman dishes made from whatever was left over, whatever they could get their hands on, or whatever pieces of meat or fish nobody else wanted. It also accounts for the preponderance of tripe, brains, innards, and intestines in Roman cooking, as well as the ubiquitous presence of preservatives like hot peppers and garlic.

A complete meal in a Roman restaurant, asteria, or trattoria (there is not much difference nowadays) includes a first course (primo) of pasta, rice, or soup; a secondo of meat, poultry, or fish; and a dessert of fresh fruit, cheese, or, less often, sweets. The meal often begins with an antipasto of appetizers selected from a table near the entrance of the restaurant where a variety of grilled vegetables, cold cuts, and shellfish are displayed. Another favorite Roman appe tizer is bruschetta (slices of toasted garlic bread topped with chopped tomatoes and sprinkled with olive oil).
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