Rome hotels

Opposite the American Embassy, the Ambasciatori Palace offers 150 large, luxurious rooms in a modern setting and impeccable service. It has a lively bar, popular with embassy people. Via Vittorio Veneto 70.

The Excelsior was the preferred residence of Elizabeth Taylor and other Hollywood luminaries during the dolce vita era. Most of its roomy, luxurious suites and well appointed rooms decorated in French Empire style still live up to its glamorous past.
Offering the most discreet service of the Via Veneto luxury hotels, the Flora is a favorite of many for its Old World charm, spacious rooms, and traditional service. It is just inside the Aurelian walls and across the street from the Villa Borghese park, which is convenient for joggers.

at the bottom of Via Veneto that has been managed by the same family for four generations. All 45 rooms have recently been renovated and soundproofed against the traffic on Via Veneto. Breakfast is served in an antiques filled salon of faded gentility decorated with black and white photos of the century Rome. Air conditioning, refrigerator, color 1V, free parking restaurant, bar, and room service.

La Residenza, on a quiet street one block from Via Veneto, was a private villa and then a convent before it became a hotel. Seven of the 27 rooms have terraces; others have only small balconies but are larger. The public rooms have Louis XVI furniture, fireplaces, and Baroque mirrors.

The Neoclassical grandness of Le Grand Hotel is not diminished by its location near the train station, which used to be one of the most fashionable areas of the city. The Grand boasts majestic rooms and suites whose elegance is matched by the appointments in the public areas, where an elaborate tea is served each afternoon, and Roman matrons lunch to harp music and eat finger sandwiches and petits fours.

The Mediterranean is one of five hotels in the Bettoja hotel group that offer accommodations from luxury to reasonably priced. Situated on the Esquiline Hill, the highest of Rome's seven hills, the hotel has a roof garden terrace, where break fast is served in summer, that provides sweeping views of the city. The rooms are traditionally furnished but have modern conveniences like direct dial telephones and satellite TVs.

The recently refurbished Hotel Nord is another Bettoja hotel in a more economical price range. It faces the new Roman Archaeological Museum and is within walking distance of the train station and the opera house. Free parking is available. Weekend and offseason discounts are available when you book through a travel agency.

On a quiet side street between piazza del Popolo and the Tiber, the very low-key Locarno is many people's favorite small hotel in Rome. Although it has lost some of its finer find siècle features to modernization, the Locarno is still a good example of a Roman hotel that has managed to retain some of its original charm while yielding to the demand for colour TVs, refrigerator, and air conditioning.

There are Belle Epoque touches in the lobby, such as Tiffany style lamps and sinuous beveled glass doors, and in winter the open fire, dark woodwork, and brass ornaments give a warm glow to the parlor. In good weather breakfast is served in the garden under the ubiquitous Roman umbrelloni. A unique feature: The Locarno provides free bicycles.

In the exclusive residential neighborhood of Parioli be hind the Villa Borghese, the luxurious Lord Byron, deco rated in subtle tones and bursts of fresh flowers, attracts a well heeled clientele. Moreover, it boasts a restaurant that many say is Rome's best.
Somebody at the Viminale went to hotel school, because here you get all the extras valet parking, remote control color TVs, credit card keys, room safes, adjustable air conditioning, and a newspaper slipped under your door in the morning. The 46 room hotel is in a converted Art Nou veau villa near the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Most of the rooms have been fully restored, but there are still a vintage 1920s cage elevator on the inside and graceful Art Nouveauor Liberty, as Italians call the style touches on the outside.

The Plaza is halfway between piazza del Popolo and piazza Venezia and has been catering to a sophisticated clientele since 1860. Its Old World grandeur has not diminished since the queen of Mexico inaugurated it. The Belle Epoque reception room, with its potted palms and stained glass ceiling, has recently been restored to its former Art Nouveau glory. The best rooms (number 257, for example) are set around a cool,

The most creature comforts oriented hotel in the area is the . Modern Atlanta Star, which also has a lush roof garden restaurant with close up views of St. Peter's and a unique policy (which it shares with its less expensive sister hotel, Atlante Garden) of picking up its guests at the airport.

Formerly the Renaissance palazzo of Pope Julius II's family, the Columbus even though due for renovations abounds in red velvet drapes, antique tapestries, and frescoed ceilings in some of the rooms (number 221), although the manage ment has opted for efficient simplicity in most of the others. That combination and the fact that the Columbus is on the main avenue leading into Vatican City make reservations in advance a must.

Peter's Square on a busy street crowded with restaurants, food stores, and souvenirs shops. The 20 rooms are very small but attractive. Breakfast is served in a frescoed dining room or around the courtyard fountain. There's no elevator to take you there, but ask for one of the spacious blue and white attic rooms, each with its own tiny terrace.

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