Domus Ludovisi - Daplace Collection

A lovely hotel in a brilliant location, with very friendly staff who were happy to accommodate us.

The photos make this look like a five-star hotel, but when you arrive, you find it’s only one floor of an old building that looks more like a tenement. The place felt rough, there was a lot of noise, and the building was so old I was afraid to get in the elevator. This is pure deception. Breakfast is brought to the room because there’s nowhere else to serve it. There’s no reception, just a woman in charge of cleaning, so at night there’s nobody to turn to if you need anything. I don’t recommend it and would never come back. Any nearby option is far better, even the ones that cost half as much.

The location is excellent, around a five-minute walk from the Spanish Steps. There’s a large parking garage nearby that charges €30 a day, though you might get lucky and find a space in the blue parking spots near the hotel for €1 an hour. At check-in, you get keys for the building’s front entrance and your room, which has its own hotel entrance. There’s enough space in the rooms for two adults and a small child to sleep with you. The staff are very friendly.

The room was clean, and the woman in charge was genuinely friendly and helpful. Breakfast was a letdown, though: it costs extra and is very basic, just one mini roll and one croissant each morning. Check-in was the bigger problem. Nobody seemed to know where we should go to collect the key, despite what we’d been told, or that we’d already paid.