Hotel delle Muse - Rome, Italy 

My husband and I picked the hotel after reading the reviews on this site and found it was every bit as lovely as people described it. Rome is expensive and at 110-140 Eur, these rooms are well worth it. For this amount, our other options were upscale hostels or not so great centre of town hotels. Now Rome itself seemed quite small to us having visited other large cities around the world. So though Delle Muse is not centre of town, it costs just 10 Eur to get you to the heart of the action(the Colosseo, Trevi, Spanish Steps etc.) and we found the time saved by taking the cab was worth it. We got the most wonderful room that had its own little balcony with a few chairs and a table overlooking a tree and some greenery downstairs...we could sit out and have an evening drink or a morning coffee - a luxury by any standards! I think it was Room 138. Also rooms are air conditioned, something not all 3-4 star places offer in Italy in May! Most turn on their air conditioning only in July and August though it was already 33 deg C in May! Breakfast was fair with bacon, scrambled eggs, cold meats, cheeses and the usual mix of cakes and cornettos(crossaints), tea, coffee and juices tht one sees in most Italian hotels. Service and the staff were very friendly, helping us with directions, recommendations and calling us a taxi. We tried dinner at the hotel, the spumante they offered us complimentary was lovely and service was pleasant. The food is not something i would reccomend too highly, a litle bland and loaded with olive oil. I'd suggest bringing in takeaway and enjoying dinner on the darling balcony outside your room(if you manage to get one with a balcony)...more romantic too! They have a lift which may be handy for older folks though it is about the size of my refrigerator at home :) For 20 somethings like us, the stairs are easy enough. I would recommend this charming little place to my friends in a heartbeat!

I would not recommend the Delle Muse hotel in Rome. It wasn't horrible but considering it's not near a metro station it should have been a nicer hotel with better services and accommodations. It was generally dirty and the operators were not particularly helpful. They just didn't seem to care too much. The carpet was filthy and the draperies in the rooms hadn't been vaccumed in years. You had to catch a local bus (the bus stop was close) to get to a metro and some times we waited up to 50 minutes for the "20 minute" bus. Their trains don't run on time either. Much to much time was wasted screwing around with the bus. I would recommend that people find the best hotel deal they can within walking distance to a metro station. The metros are not as clean or user friendly as our stay in Athens but they go most places a tourist will want to see and it will save you valuable time each day. From any metro station you could virtually then walk to any location you would want. The Delle Muse is relatively quiet except the hotel had a group of soccer players staying there and Saturday night in the middle of the night they came in drunk and woke up the whole floor in the middle of the night. At breakfast, which was marginal...except their coffee which was excellent, the soccer players would swarm like locusts around the food tables. One night they even shaved their heads at the dinner table in the courtyard terrace cafe while others were dining and nobody in the hotel said anything to them....Yuck. One night in the middle of the night the door strip molding fell off our door and we didn't know what the ruckus was until the next morning when we saw it laying on the tile....nails up! They did have a driver who took us to the airport which was convinient when we departed. The hotel said the rate was 47 E and when he dropped us off he insisted on 60 E. He didn't speak any English so we were in the position of checking in to the international airport with all our luggage or arguing in different languages about 13 E at the airport drop off. I just paid him but that was consistent with our experiencess at the Delle Muse. There are no laundry's close by either so any personal laundry was taken care of in the bathroom sink. It appears that the hotel is used more by business people rather than tourists who are trying to figure out how to maneuver around a complicated city. Regardless of where you stay in Rome get the "Roma" pass for unlimited bus/metro transporation for 3 days and free access to 2 venues and discounts on others. It also eliminates some lines. We were there the 3rd week in June and it's hot and humid. I would never go there in July or August when the tourist swell to ridiculous numbers and the heat is oppressive. BUT, Rome was fabulous and an experience not to be missed! If you have time a day trip to Tivoli is wonderful especially if you're a history buff. The gardens and the estate at Villa d'Este is fabulous and Hadrians Villa is fun to explore if you're at all interested in ancient Roman history....why else go to Rome? MT