Corinthia Rome

Guglielmo Janni painted the ceiling of the Bank of Italy's council chamber as an allegory of the history of Italian money, a sensible thing for a board to have over its head. It is still there, with Giulio Bargellini's 1920s frescoes around it, and the room is now the Theodoli Heritage Suite, with a glossy black piano in the salone. Pio and Marcello Piacentini designed the palazzo on Piazza del Parlamento, built between 1913 and 1921, and restoring it, the studio GA found mosaics, stucco and cornices under the later additions. The smallest of the sixty rooms, the Classics, run to 25 to 29 square metres and look onto the garden lounge or the cobbled streets, and the minibar keeps its cocktails bottled one at a time. The garden is the middle of the building: Viride, Carlo Cracco's restaurant, looks over it, and Piazzetta cooks in an open kitchen beside it.

Recommended for anyone who wants Rome's set pieces on foot: the Trevi Fountain is about 500 metres away and the Pantheon barely further. Children are welcome, and the family offer gives a second room at half price for two adults and two children up to twelve. Piazzetta runs from Roman classics to burgers and club sandwiches, which should settle most arguments at the table. Below, in the old vaults, the spa's pools take guests from sixteen and its treatments from eighteen, so the vault is still kept from small hands. On the fifth floor, a spiral staircase climbs from the Chigi Suite to a terrace of 153 square metres, looking across the rooftops towards Parliament, which is close enough to keep an eye on.