Domus Fabiola

There’s nowhere to leave your bags after checkout, since this isn’t actually a hotel. It’s two rooms in an apartment, sharing a hallway and office. My room was clean, had AC, and came with a light breakfast, but the 10 am checkout meant the cleaning lady knocked at the door. Breakfast setup and cleaning made a lot of noise from 7:30 am, and the thin walls meant noisy neighbors were hard to escape.

We booked three nights but left after about 30 minutes. As soon as I lay on the bed, my body started itching. The sheets were so old and overwashed that they felt like knotted, fuzzy cheesecloth, with the beige blanket from the photo on top. That blanket felt like it had been found on the street after a homeless person left it, then washed and put back on the bed. I’m not exaggerating, the pictures speak for themselves. The place was uncomfortable and also felt unsafe. It’s one room in a three-bedroom apartment on the third floor, with each room advertised and rented separately as a “B&B.” To me it felt more like a refugee camp bed or a prison cell. On our way out, a mentally unstable person in the building was wandering around and kicking doors and walls. It was frightening, and I’m so glad we got out.

The replacement place was awful, an old, dirty apartment that didn’t even feel like a B&B. If I’d wanted to stay alone in an apartment, I’d have booked an Airbnb. They didn’t offer any reduction, even though that wasn’t what I paid for, and I could only manage one night before booking somewhere much nicer and more expensive. A day before my arrival, they told me there was a boiler problem and no hot water, so they had to move me to another hotel. I agreed because I had no other choice, after they’d already charged me three days before arrival. I’d never had a hotel booked on Booking charge me before I arrived, though that wasn’t the main problem. I suspect the boiler excuse was a lie and they moved me because they wanted to put more people in the double room I’d booked for myself at the DomiusFabiola and charge them more. Avoid this place.

A handy base for visiting the Vatican.