Hotels : Curated
A cream-coloured palazzo at dusk, its lit windows and top-floor glass terrace in front, with the Colosseum rising behind it to the right.
Rome, Italy

Palazzo Manfredi

£££
Grown-up & familyContemporaryHeritageRecommended

Recommended by friends and by publications we trust. We have not stayed yet; it is high on our list.

Via Labicana 125, 00184 Rome, ItalyWebsite

A Michelin-starred dinner on the roof with the Colosseum across the road, and a gym that looks down on the ruins of Rome's largest gladiator school.

Gladiators trained next door to Palazzo Manfredi. The Ludus Magnus, the largest gladiator school found in Rome, lies in ruins beside the hotel, and the gym looks down on it, which should take the complaining out of any workout. Across the road stands the Colosseum. The building began as a noble's villa, and its cream front has shutters at every window and, along the top, a storey of arched windows under a frieze carved FORTVNA DVCE - with fortune leading - a motto the gladiators next door could have used. Inside, the designer Maria Renata Fimiani has passed up every chance at gladiator kitsch. In the living room of one suite, gold-framed chairs in cobalt and teal sit round a marble table, and at dusk the sliding glass doors fill with the Colosseum, floodlit.

Recommended for anyone who wants ancient Rome on the doorstep and is happy to pay for the front row. Families can take the Family Suite Colosseum View, two connected bedrooms, with babysitting on request, which helps, since the restaurant on the roof takes children only from ten. The Colosseum is about 300 yards' walk, and the rest of the stay can be spent looking at it from different heights. From The Court, a cocktail bar that takes its mixing seriously, it rises behind the ruins of the Ludus Magnus. AROMA Bistro faces the other way, onto the Domus Aurea and the Oppian Hill, for anyone who has had enough of it. AROMA itself, Michelin-starred, is on the roof: cream cloths, oval-backed chairs in dusty pink, and the Colosseum beyond a glass rail, gold at sunset and floodlit after it.

A living room at dusk with blue and teal chairs round a marble table, and the Colosseum lit through sliding glass doors, with a painted colonnade on the wall at right.
A bedroom with a cane-and-fabric headboard, a bed under a black and white checked throw, and a dressing table beside a window, with forest-print curtains at each side.
A rooftop terrace laid for dinner at sunset, with cream tablecloths and pink-cushioned chairs, and the Colosseum lit behind the railing.
Sliced tuna fanned on a white plate beside a round mound of rice salad with avocado and yellow fruit, with a dot of sauce and a pink onion petal.
A vaulted room with a brick arch and exposed wooden beams, a blue round coffee table with fruit, a yellow armchair and a round painted panel on the far wall.
An indoor restaurant under a glass roof, with lanterns hanging over round tables, rattan chairs and tall plants.

The facts

Rooms

Rooms
16
Interconnecting
Yes
Family rooms
Yes
Sleeps up to
5

Room types

  • Prestige Courtyard View
  • Executive Colle Oppio View
  • Master Colosseum View
  • Grand View Junior Suite
  • Grand View Gallery Suite
  • Grand View Colosseum Suite
  • Family Suite Colosseum View
  • Ludus Magnus Suite
  • Suite Colosseum View
  • Marco Aurelio Suite
  • Marco Aurelio Loft
  • Marco Aurelio Penthouse
  • Grand View Penthouse Suite

Pools

Pools
0

Creche

Babysitting
Available

Food and drink

Restaurants
2
Bars
1
Worth booking
AROMA, the Michelin-starred restaurant on the roof terrace

Practical

Airport
Rome Ciampino (CIA)
Beach
No beach nearby
Air conditioning
Yes
Parking
Yes
Wifi
free Wi-Fi

Building

Converted
2010

Services

Gym
Yes
Room service
Yes

What's nearby

Colosseum
about 300 yards, on foot

More in Rome

A view through an open window onto a sunlit piazza, with an obelisk, a fountain and a baroque church facade across the square.Grown-up

Rhea Silvia Luxury Navona

££

Rome, Italy

Five rooms in a 16th-century building on the ruins of Domitian's stadium, just off Piazza Navona, with breakfast brought to the room each morning.

A dark red wooden door in a pale stone doorway, with a potted plant on each side and a black doormat printed with THE STUDIO, on cobbles.Grown-up

Chapter Roma

££

Rome, Italy

Tacos among the cacti on a roof above Regola, looking out over the domes of Rome, with street art in the lobby of the 19th-century building below.

a cream stone palazzo on a Rome street, its windows lit gold by the evening sun, with a car parked by the entrance and a flag above the doorGrown-up & family

Corinthia Rome

££££

Rome, Italy

Two small pools in the old bank vaults, and upstairs a suite under the painted ceiling where the Bank of Italy's board once met, ten minutes' walk from the Pantheon.

All 5 hotels in Rome →

Where to eat in Rome

All 5 restaurants in Rome →