I am just back this afternoon after 4 nights in Rome when I stayed at the hotel Patria. I have been in Rome several times and always book one of the three star hotels near Termini Station - after all Rome is itself the major star and a hotel is just somewhere to sleep in. Because of the booking sites I use to book hotels in Europe I have stayed in 3 - 4 hotels in or around the station and this was one of the best.
I arrived in Rome on Thursday hot, sweaty and tired after a very early flight from Dublin. I had read the reviews on Tripadvisor and seen the negative comments but was not concerned because the positive comments appeared more balanced. The walk from Termini Station drop off point for the Terravision coach from Ciampino Airport is down on Via Marsala. Its about a 10 minute walk to the hotel. I use the Metro a lot in Rome and could have used it for the transfer to Repubblica but with a medium sized trolly case and the steep escalators in Repubblica I thought it better to walk.
Check in time in Italian hotels can be as late as 2pm but I arrived at the Patria a few minutes after 12 noon. I fully expected to have to leave the case and go off and have lunch and come back later to check in. However the wonderful desk clerk told me that my room was ready so after the check in process I entered a tiny lift that took me to the 4th floor. As many hotels are in what could be classed "listed buildings" the lifts cannot be on the scale one finds in airports/hospitals or other public buildings.
My room was Room 411. It had a strange (but not unsatisfactory) layout. The single bed was against a wall half of which was mirrored which made the room look bigger on entering. There was a reasonable sized wardrobe with safety deposit, extra pillow and blankets (which were not necessary). A bedside locker was next to the bed with the phone, radio controls and bedside light switch beside or on same. There was a long dressing table with a shallow drawer and a flat screen TV on the top. The room was L-shaped and the shower was actually in the room just opposite the bathroom.
The room was clean and the mini bar had a couple of soft drinks, water, beer but no spirits. Prices are displayed on a laminate underneath the glass topped dressing table. The bathroom had a toilet in an awkward position next to the sink on one side and bidet on the other.
The hotel is just around the corner from the Repubblica Metro Station - 2 - 3 minutes walk and 10 minutes down Nazionale to the Victor Emmanuel Monument.
Every day I was up at around 6am and showered and dressed and down for breakfast shortly after 7am. There are about 12 tables in the breakfast room on the ground floor (up a couple of steps from the reception). The reception staff were all excellent - brilliant English and very willing to be of assistant if required. However the ladies who organised the breakfast room (and were probably part of the general housekeeping staff) had very little English but smiled and nodded at everyone. Breakfast consisted of cereal (which I don't eat), two types of juice, tea, coffee, mineral water, canned fruit, yogurt, wonderful bread rolls, processed cheese, croissants, jams and some sort of cakes which I never tried.
By 8am I was out of the hotel and seldom returned before 6pm. As I ate lunch out every day (very hot and humid in Rome during my stay so a long lunch was a relief) I was not really hungry by evening. So on my way back I used to get some food from the Spar on Nazionale (50m from the hotel) and return to my room for a shower and then a drink and snack before heading out for a walk for an hour or so. The area around the hotel is perfectly safe late in the evening and the hotel has 24 hour front office staff on hand.
My one and only criticism (and this is not the fault of the hotel) is that there were a number of Italian guests for the first two nights and they made quite a bit of noise returning to their rooms in the early hours of the morning.
Yesterday evening I returned from my day out in Rome and advised the front office clerk that I would be checking out early this morning (this is something they ask you to do). I was going to come down last thing with the total for the mini bar ( they don't take the payment slip away every day as they do in other hotels) but he asked me for the details and I gave him a very honest answer to date and said what I might consume that evening. He did a calculation and disregarded a few things and rounded the figure up to about 10 euro less than I had already used. I paid and he said that if I came down alter he would give me the receipt but I was exhausted so I had a shower and went straight to bed.
This morning I arrived down before 7am and a different clerk was on duty. I checked out and he confirmed that my room was pre paid but did not query what I had used in the mini bar the previous evening. (I know I make this sound like a mini bar review but I am used to the mini bar being cleared out the day before departure).
I will definitely use the Patria Hotel whenever I go to Rome again and I am planning my next trip. The hotel is dated but clean. The staff are friendly even if they don't speak a lot of English. The locations is great. The towels may be of the thin variety but they definitely dry you and are replaced every day. My room looked over the back of the hotel and looked on to a residential block opposite. Even though the air conditioning was excellent I sometimes used to look out the window in the early morning or late in the evening and could see two things - Romans going about their daily lives opposite and smokers in the Patria who were semi abiding with the Italian non smoking room by smoking out their windows. Yes i will be back - for location the hotel cannot be bettered in its price range but also the warmth of welcome was appreciated.
