Much like staterooms on a Cunard line, the shipshape rooms with their parquet hardwood floors and Florentine leather headboards make for a cozy refuge from the hustle of the (Piazza di Spagna) neighborhood. Everything has its place—and, in fact, there might be moments when you wonder if there’s room for you and your possessions.
Relax, everything can and does fit—but these small rooms are best treated as way stations to the more commodious spaces throughout the rest of the hotel. Use the rooms for sleeping and dressing—think of them as large dressing rooms with bed and toilet—and you’ll be happy. And if you’re traveling with a partner, well, you’ve probably already sacrificed privacy long ago.
Public Spaces
Reception is a pod. Literally. A large white resin egg that might have come from the set of Woody Allen’s film Sleeper. And there’s a second egg that serves as the front office. Two white resin eggs in the midst of what used to be the chapel of the seminary.
Now deconsecrated, the high altar is the bar—and hundreds of bottles fill the area where once there might have hung a crucifix. This once-holy space is where breakfast (and a light lunch/brunch) is served—which makes sense if one thinks about the high regard Italians place upon food.
There’s also a lovely outdoor art-filled courtyard—with mounted speakers playing Italian opera. If you’re a smoker, there are worse places to light a ciggy.
(Source: Hotel Art by the Spanish Steps)
Breakfast
The buffet is arrayed across the bar—which used to be the altar. Even if you’re the kind of person who’s lost the faith, it’s a fine way to pay obeisance to the bounties of a new day. And while the chairs—low, and necessitating a kind of louche slouch—are probably better suited to cocktails, the general hush of the room (a vestige from its origins?) enables a leisurely and relaxing morning—before heading into the maelstrom of Roma.
Staff
Helpful and attentive without being obsequious or fawning.
Location
In the heart of it, if you’re an English-speaking visitor, or an inveterate shopper. Everything you associate with la dolce vita is within a ten-minute walk.
Overview
A fine boutique hotel in a town which once favored fusty, Hotel Art does a good job at mixing the classical with the modern—so that one never forgets where one is: in the heart of the Eternal City, but beating with the pulse of now.
