This hotel was perfect for our family of four. We had a suite for four people which we booked online with the hotel directly. We had a good sized double room and a separate adjoining twin room for the kids. The room was kept very clean and we didn’t find the noise a problem as we shut the shutters inside and out and kept the air conditioning units on in both rooms.

The breakfast was good but it is best to get there early so you have more choice of pastries. We had very good bruschetta on Sunday morning! They ask you if you would like a drink from the bar, and so we ordered cappuccinos which are included in the price.

The hotel gives you a very good map of Rome which we found invaluable as it was very detailed.

We had heard from reviews on Trip Advisor that there is a 10% discount if you pay in cash, but the hotel staff were a bit vague for a few days about whether we could have this discount or not, but after checking with the manager it was all agreed and this was not a problem.

The hotel is perfectly placed for loads of good bars and restaurants and is only a few minutes walk away from the Spanish Steps. We also walked to the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and up the Piazza del Popolo, where there are great views over the city if you walk up to the Pincio.

We did walk a bit further to Piazza Navona which is a lovely square full of nice bars and restaurants and lots of painters selling their pictures.

We would recommend a restaurant called Zio Ciro (part of a chain) which is up the road first right as you come out of the hotel entrance. This was the only restaurant we could find that did cheap house wine in a carafe rather than in a bottle. It was 5 Euros for a half litre carafe and the food was good too.

We got taxis to the Colosseum and the Vatican to save our kids from moaning and these were reasonably priced. It was very easy to get a taxi as there were taxis parked in Piazza Miganelli just up from the hotel. You can also get taxis near the Spanish Steps and they are waiting for you outside the Vatican museum.

If you get to the Colosseum early enough you can just walk straight in with hardly any queue, we got there for 9am but it actually opens at 8.30am.

We booked our tickets to the Vatican museum online and this saved us from having to queue up outside the museum, you just walk straight in. But you do still have to queue up to exchange your voucher for tickets at the ticket desks (there are priority ones for online bookings) but the queues here were very small.

I would recommend climbing the dome at St Peter’s as this was great fun for the kids. Just follow the signs for the Cupola when you are in the queue for St Peters. We chose to take the lift for the first bit but walked up the remaining steps.