I stayed in this hotel for 3 nights as part of a 2 week trip for our anniversary. I have been to Italy several times and I always like to stay near the Campo dei Fiori, but I wanted to try a new hotel since my last one left a lot to be desired. For the most part, I found the Hotel Smeraldo to be just fine. The room was nice, it was in a quiet location near everything, and for the location, I thought it was a very good value. However I think the breakfast the hotel offers at 7 euros, is not a good value. We opted to buy pastries at the bakery across the street from the hotel for 1 euro each and have cafe latte's at the cafe across the street for 1.5 euros each. We would spend usually less than 7 euros total for breakfast rather than the 7 euro per person the hotel charges. If anyone needs any fruit, there is an open air market in the campo dei fiori nearly every morning and the produce was wonderful!

One word of warning: The hotel turns the power to your room off when you leave, and when we returned our first night after dinner and a night walk through Rome, the power wouldn't turn back on in our room. The man at the front desk tried to tell us it was our fault that we had plugged something in wrong and shorted the room out. We had not plugged anything in at all, we had literally dropped our luggage off and left for the day. We were eventually moved to another room, but while I was packing up my luggage in the dark (I had hung up some dresses in the closet for the wrinkles to fall out), the man at the front desk rung the room phone and asked us why were not coming down and we were wasting his time. I told him we were packing and would be down shortly and he said he didn't know what we were saying but to come down NOW. We were moved into what I assume is the handicap suite on the main floor. It was slightly larger and had no stairs, and we were fine in that room and the staff was fine from then on. But it was a bit annoying at the end of an evening when you are exhausted to have to change rooms, pack in the dark, and then be blamed for an electrical shortage there is no way you could have caused.

But that event aside, I think I might stay here on a return trip, I will just bring a flashlight next time.

This hotel is your basic hotel recommended by Rick Steves. Location was excellent. Rooms were clean, but shower was small. This is pretty much the norm in Europe though and I am pleasantly surprised whenever I do get a bigger shower. Service was so so, depending on who was at the reception desk at the time. Breakfast was decent.
If you are not into luxury and you just want a clean room and a shower with hot water, then this hotel is for you. After all that's what we needed and wanted. Rome was waiting for us to explore.

Good location, but walls are paper thin, and the water pipes regularly and loudly proclaimed someone above had either flushed the toilet or was taking a shower. Fairly helpful staff.

Although the location of Hotel Smeraldo IS great, we dubbed this hotel "Hotel Smells Awful." The staff was very indifferent, our room was VERY small and smelled bad (they don't have non-smoking rooms). The plus was because we really did not want to be in our room at all, we spent much more time seeing the sights than we might have otherwise. If you are looking for a central location for a decent price and not caring too much about the accommodations, this would be fine. If you are looking for something a bit more tolerable, keep looking.