The Hotel is situated in a very calm neighbourhood in the west of Rome, about 500 meters from Cornelia Metro Station. It is definetely NOT close to St.Peter as stated on the homepage, but bus and metro connections are good and frequent.
Our double room was relatively newly decorated and clean. There were traces of mould in the bathroom due to a very poor ventilation. The clothes rail in the wardrobe was broken and there was a lack of coat-hangers.
We witnessed a shortage of hot water on our last day when two buses of Spanish tourists left in the early morning and all passengers took a shower simultanously, this shouldn't happen in a three-star hotel, I know youth hostels who do better. The breakfast is simple but better than Italian standard, staff is friendly and helpful. Towels are changed daily and we found our room always tidy and well ranged on our return from the city.
The minibar offers soft drinks, local Peroni beer and two varieties of wine on very reasonable prices, satellite TV has RAI 1 to 3, all Berlusconi-Mediasat channels, TVE 1 (spanish), BBC World and Sat 1 (german).
Restaurant was closed during our stay so we couldn't check it out. Avoid the "Bar Gregory" across the street, they have no pricelist and seem to charge the double from tourists. Supermarkets, Bars and Pizza-to-take-away-shops are on Boccea street close to the Hotel.
There may be better three-star-hotels in Rome, but this one has some advantages as the calm surrounding, a free parking in the yard, a relatively rich breakfast and resonable prices (official prices are around 150 € per night but most seem to pay less than 100 € per room per night when booking in advance).

Fairly speaking, it is confortable enough (I stayed there for 5 nights). Most staffs are nice. I got a large two-bed room although I booked a single one. The room is very clean.

This hotel is a bit old, the air condition works but a bit noisy, and the room has poor sound insulation between adjacent rooms. The breakfast is ok. There is some little odor of tabacco or cigarette in the corridor and when you opening your room door, but tolerable (I guess the odor was attached on the carpet or wall).

The light is dim everywhere. I highly suggest, if the manager see this review, that you should brighten your illumination in your room and your dining hall and your lobby, and renew all your carpets and wallpapers to remove the ordor and refresh the style.

It is a 10-to-15-miniute walk to the metro, to the second from the last station of the line A, namely 'Cornelia'. The road where the hotel situated "via Gregorian XI" is in fact not a main line, so it is a dark walk when you come back from metro station to the hotel in the late night. But I think it is ok since it is in the resident region. At least I walk back safely every night.

So the hotel is ok and I should give it 3 stars. But the following scene did happen one morning and reduced my rating of the hotel greatly. Here I cite verbatim:

I, to the reception desk staff: "Can you do me a favor, to confirm the flight for me since the operators are all speaking italian?"

The reply of the staff (impatiently): "No, you can do it yourself."

As it is, he continued refusing to help. I was very surprised. Finally I tried to do it with the help of some others. I just dont know that, for a staff of a 3-star hotel, in Italy, is it a sin or shame to confirm the flights for your customer? Or in Italy the desk staff never did so? It should not happen in any hotel costing you 100 Euro per night, and should not happen in any staff of any hotel.

The Marc Aurelio hotel was not quiet the hotel that me and my friends expected. From the moment we checked in we could see that it would be a stressful time. The staff at the font desk could barely speak english. We finally got the keys to our room, and at first we were surprised at the fact that it was the old traditional key as opposed to the electronic entry system. The coridors had a pungent smell o them, the order was dirty and very off putting. Our room also had a unpleasent smell to it, but we thought if we put the air condonitioning on it my reduce the smell. This was immposible as the air con was not functioning at all, so the only option left was to leave the window open. The beds had no blankets in them, they only had sheets, we finally found the blankets on the floor inside the wardrobe. Once we opened the blanket we found a lot of hair in them and decided to not use them all together. The bathroom had no door lock on it. we decided not to let this bother our stay too much.
when we tried to see if we could get our room changed we were told they were fully booked and it would be difficult. the restaurant area of the hotel also had a pungent odor to it and this put us off eating there. so we didnt not have breakfast at the hotel in the morning as the breakfast was just warmed up food. the safe in the room was not working so this meant us all carrying or passports and other valuble items with us at all times. There was also very little warm water when having showers in the morning.

the hotel is quite far from the city centre and there is not information about any buses that can take you to the hotel. the walk from the metro station is about 15minutes. the hotel is at the second to last stop of the metro.

The hotel is a fair distance from the Chiampino airport too, so tavelling to the hotel from the airport by taxi is expensive ( around 60 euros), and not many of the taxi drivers know where the hotel is situated exactly.

Overall i would say the hotel is ok if one just wants a place to sleep at night and nothing else, and it's a bit too far from any of the tourist areas of rome



the

Traveller from Leicester, England - Feb 2005
We arrived at the Marc Aurelio after walking around aimlessly from the Metro Station looking for the hotel for about 30 minutes. The hotel was very clean, and the staff were friendly. The bars on the bedroom window and the rubbish piled up outside left alot to be desired.
Breakfast was ok, pretty standard continental breakfast.
A bit dissapointing that the 'relaxing' American bar was not open, which would have been well worth it for the hotel in our opinion, as it was too far to walk to any decent bar or restaurant.
The air conditioning is absolutely dreadful, it comes on when it wants too, even when the room is already very cold. It is also extremely loud, especially at 5am in the morning.
The hotel states it is close to the Vatican City, if you call 5 stops on the Metro close, then you won't be dissapointed.