My husband & I stayed at this b&b for 4 nights mid July after seeing some good reviews on here & booking directly with Giovanna (the proprietor). Some of the higher rated properties were fully booked so when she got back to us with a decent price & with vacancies we thought we would be safe booking it.
First... the good.
Giovanna is an excellent host, from prompt & friendly email correspondence, through to welcoming us on our arrival. She showed us the rooms, gave us an excellent map with details of where to catch buses & some good tips about distances (e.g. leave a lot longer than you think to walk to the Vatican museum entrance as it's a good 10 minutes on from St Peter's Square).
The rooms themselves (& we saw both) were of a good size with decent size beds. Many hotel & b&b's have normal size doubles but, as we sleep on a queen size at home, we often find these cramped. At this B&B the beds were at least king, if not queen size. The two rooms are called the Margherita & Girasole. The Margherita does not have an en suite but it does have a large, clean & nicely decorated bathroom opposite which is for exclusive use. The Girasole has an en suite but it's tiny & it is impossible to take a shower without water going everywhere. On reflection we preferred the Margherita room even though the bathroom was not en suite.
The location was good - about a 10 minute walk to St Peters & with a bus stop just around the corner. There was also an excellent restaurant called Goose that Giovanna recommended just around the corner & we had two meals here. It's not upmarket in any way but well-priced food & friendly.
Plenty of storage space in either bedroom & both had balconies although I wouldn't have wanted to sit out on them.
There were cards with recommended restaurants in the kitchen area & there was always juice available in the fridge.
The not so good....
Whilst the location was great in terms of position to St Peter's, as other reviewers have stated, it is only about 100 metres from a busy train line. If you like sleeping in air conditioning I suppose it isn't so much of a problem as the windows are closed (& they are well sound-proofed). Please note it is an extra charge for the air conditioning. However, we can't use air conditioning overnight as it makes us feel ill & so we had the choice of having the windows open for a nice (if warm) breeze & not being able to sleep a wink for the traffic & train noise, or closing the windows for peace & quiet but then being unbearably hot. The trains do slow down in frequency overnight & at weekends but, even then, we were woken at 2 hour intervals by freight trains. I'd like to point out that the noise from these trains is not a mild rumble, by the way, it is crashingly loud! Especially the freight trains at night.
The breakfast was disappointing. One morning the coffee machine was broken by another guest (not Giovanna's fault, admittedly, but it meant we couldn't have coffee) & there is no kettle for tea. There were no cereal bowls one morning. You have to heat your water in the microwave if you want tea & then the choice is fruit tea (which I like) or Earl Grey. If you like normal tea-bags then take your own. There is no bin in the kitchen area so you can't scrape your bowls or plates or put used tea bags in them. Not major problems in themselves but minor tweaks would make it a lot better. There was quite a bit of choice though - with two types of cereal, bread (& a toaster), cakes & pastries, & some cream cheese & processed cheese in the fridge. There are jams & spreads in the fridge too. The kitchen area has a timed light switch (there are no windows in the kitchen) so halfway through eating it would go off, plunging us into darkness. Quite dodgy if you're pouring hot coffee at the time! I appreciate the energy saving reasons behind this but lengthening the timer to 30 minutes would be better.
There were no mirrors in the bedroom. Giovanna has kindly provided TVs & DVD players with a library of DVDs. However, I would rather a small investment had been made in buying a cheap full length mirror for each room than spend the money on a TV that people don't normally have time to watch on a city break. I can't see it costing more than £100 max to do this. If you are staying in the Margherita room which doesn't have the en suite, you are forever having to cross the hall to check your make-up, clothes or other stuff which you normally use a mirror for in the bedroom. A little irritating.
Overall, we wouldn't stay here again because of the noise but just a few minor changes & minimal investment would improve the experience for those who don't mind being in such close proximity to the railway line, as this place does have some good points (the main one being Giovanna).
