Ranieri - Rome, Italy 

Speaking to people who had been on short breaks to Rome, they all said "stay central". The choice of central sites was quite long. Given that we were only there for 2 nights (3 days) we didn't need much in way of luxury, but many of the reviews of hotels under ?200 were worryingly "mixed". However, going up to just over the ?200 mark for 2 nights, we found univerally good reviews for this hotel. Having just returned, the reviews were accurate. Nice hotel, good site, just outside the main tourist area, but we walked to all the sites. However the Vatican, being across the river was the furthest away, but still walkable if you are fairly able. The rooms are small neat and tidy as is the bathroom, and despite bing on a main road, we got good nights sleep on both nights. An added bonus was that 2 of the reception team, though of Italian parentgae had been bought up in England and Australia respecyively, so were word perfect in our language. Breakfast was decent,--croissant, pasties and cereal, but if thats not enough, pleny of small snack bars nearby. Rome itself--wonderfull, great sites, nice mainly small shops, thankfully different to the generic high streets in UK. Eating--well as expected, more exensive in the main piazzas -especially the drinks--but some side street cafes just off the main sites very reasonable and if you order beer and wine for instance, you get snacks for free nearly everywhere.

After a few years we recently returned to the Ranieri. To our surprise we found that the general areas of the Hotel had been remodeled and improved. The old grey entrance has completely changed and the reception which used to be on the second floor has been relocated to the ground floor. Also there is a new breakfast room which looks great. Staff was still as friendly as before. We had asked for a quiet room so we were at the back and had no view at all but the room was nicely fitted and very clean (we liked the Bang&Olufsen TV set in our room!). The free Wi-Fi worked fine in the lounge area but not in our room. We believe the hotel has a good price/quality ratio and we will certainly return. The hotel is in the city center so parking was difficult. They did arrange for someone to pick up our rental and valet park it.