Hotel Zara, Rome

Author's product rating:   

Quality of Rooms	Excellent
Standard of Service	Excellent
Quality of Food & Drink	Average

Advantages:	Centally placed, reasonably priced
Disadvantages:	lots of stairs and the lift isn't great

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

One thing I wasn't expecting when I visited Rome earlier this year was to get a room with it's own painted ceiling. Well certainly not for the price we paid!

Earlier this year I visited Rome with four friends and we booked a triple and a double room (both en-suite) between us. At around £30 a night each with B&B this was certainly good value and expectations were fairly low.

Location
Hotel Zara is on Via quatttro fontaine, fairly centrally situated within easy walking distance of the colluseum, spanish steps and trevi fountain. It's also very close to the termini train station, which we used one day to get to and from the Vatican, so is good whether you plan to wear out some shoe leather or not. It's also well situated for shopping, quite literally sitting above a fantastic delicatessen and nestled among trendy fashion shops which just call out to you. Despite that, it's still quiet as it's a little off a main road and I certainly had no issues with street noise.

Service
Upon entering the tiny foyer, a helpful face awaits. Thankfully, the staff speak English (to my shame I never learned more than a few words of Italian) so it was great to have a local to turn to for advice and directions. We were given a map of the area and some useful places (resturants etc) pointed out. We couldn't check in straight waway as our rooms weren't ready yet (well we did arrive at breakfast time) so our bags were looked after and we hit the streets in search of a well deserved lunch. And later the nice man on reception opened our bottle of locally purchased wine - now that's what I call excellent customer service!

Rooms
The rooms we stayed in were en-suite and we were pleasantly surprised. The bathrooms were spacious, newly fitted and bright with little soaps etc for us. They included towels and were fitted with built in hair dyer - a real bonus of an enclave of girls like us! The rooms were decently sized, well furnished and nice and clean. The single beds in my room were of decent enough quality and no gripes about the comfort levels from any. The view from the window was admittedly of other rooms, but with the net curtains we didn't feel unduely overlooked. And the ceilings? Well they had been beautifully painted with all manner of ornate stylings - flowers, scrolls and tasteful litle scenes. Nothing quite on the scale of the sistine chapel, but certainly unique and very nicely done. In fact, we felt so comfortable in the rooms we were happy to round off the day sharing some local wine in the rooms rather than the local bars.

Breakfast
If anything let down the stay at Hotel Zara, it was the breakfasts. The self service buffet consisted of croissants/danishes, bread buns, very cheap cheese slices and a selection of cereals. A drink machine dispensed tea (bleugh), coffee and espressos (good apparently), and a watery orange drink was availabe in jugs. While not exactly ideal, it was sufficient and you could eat your fill, should you wish to.

General decor
The general decor of the place was somewhat budget oppulence. Closer inspection revealed painted marble pattern rather than the real thing, for example. But it was all done with style and taste so despite the budget price you could almost imagine you were staying in a plush hotel...

Minor gripes
-All rooms were upstairs, and the lift wasn't great - slow and not very big. Not ideal for anyone with mobility problems, but you can do it.
-Temperature control not great - during a cold February it took us a while to get the balance right with the heaters which belted out heat
-Breakfast room not very big, so we sometimes had to wait for a table.

Nice little things
-The painted ceilings
-24 manned reception
-Helpful staff
-website with lots of info (http://www.hotelzara.com/camere_ENG.htm)

I'd certainly recommend this place - it's a little gem and a really pleasant surprise if you are travelling on a budget.