We enjoyed our stay at the Montecarlo Hotel. The staff was friendly and helpful, and even though we had a room facing the street it was so quiet. The area is safe and not too far from Termini train station. It is a bit of a walk to the downtown attractions, but if you take the train it's not bad. I appreciated the in-room wireless internet. I would definitely stay again.

The hotel is in a reasonable location. It is away from the main sites however fairly easy to access using public transport or a bearable walk. It took us 20min at a fairly quick pace to get back from the Trevi fountain. Allow 30mins to stoll it! Buses stopped very close to the hotel so made access very easy.

Our room was in the new section of the hotel. This meant that it was spotlessly clean with new everything. Unfortunately since we were there in January it was pretty cold. When we arrived the windows were open and the heating off. Once we worked out the air conditioning it was ok though. Unfortunately we never got the heated towel rail working so the bathroom was a bit cold.

Breakfast was ok. There wasn't a huge amount of choice but what was available was good. Get there early for the best pastries and to ensure a seat in the smallish breakfast room.

Overall the hotel was a good place to stay for a short break. The staff were very friendly and the facilities more than adequate. The only problems were the slightly greater distance from the centre and a cold room at first.

What we really enjoyed:

- Mr Franco Spaccialbelli at the reception desk! What a great guy, totally service-minded.

- The beautifully decorated room. Very cosy.

- The proximity to Termini station.

- The excellent restaurants in the neighbourhood. Especially Mama Angela's and the Steakhouse around the corner.

What we didn't enjoy:

- The breakfast that was more like a cake buffet without healthy alternatives. A diabetic would have problems finding something to eat without too much sugar.

- The beds that were pretty hard and uncomfortable.

- The hydro-massage shower that sometimes inflicted more pain than pleasure...

To summarize: a good hotel for the price and Mr Franco Spaccialbelli really made our day. I guess we were extremely lucky with timing as well since we spent 14-16 Dec in Rome and there were almost no tourists anywhere. We had been warned about the long queues and therefore paid extra to pre-book tickets to the Vatican but it turned out to be completely unnecessary since there was no queue at all! We could walk right through. The same applied for Colosseum. Maybe some people who heard about the recent flooding of the Tiber canceled in the last minute. Anyway, a great trip for us!

On the first night we got lost trying to find it, once we got our bearings, it was a very easy walk to the Termini. On one corner there are embassies and Armed Guards with automatic weapons all night, so walking home we felt very safe.
The room was decent and heated perfectly, the mattress was a bit hard but did it's job. Alessandro was very helpful even at 4am when we woke up asking for a Internet Key :).