Oh wow. There are so many great qualities about this apartment the only way to start is with your potential experience with it.
Valeria and Mario were attentive hosts even after we sent the deposit. Valeria’s communication is totally on it before, during and after the trip. (She sent a daily text when we were in Rome to check in with us.) The car service from and to the airport that she arranged for us made a great beginning and end to our trip. Valeria met us at the apartment after generously giving us an early check-in. We rode up five floors in a perfectly maintained lovely vintage elevator that holds three people. The apartment is beautiful, immaculately clean and spotless. I’ve walked barefoot through out and I can tell you there’s not a speck of dirt on the floor. (The cleaning person is truly talented!) The bedding and towels are hotel-high quality. As Art Directors, we loved the tasteful mix of new Rome and old. The lighting is great. Two bathrooms, both with showers (shampoo etc is stocked) is an awesome plus and why we picked it. The kitchen is fully functional, we made breakfast every day and used the dishwasher. My sister was gleeful to use the washing machine (soap provided) and drying rack as she is on a prolonged backpacking trip. We noticed A/C in both bedrooms and the main living area but never had to use it. The building is super secure, two sets of large, locked, thick, traditional Roman outer doors at street level. The apartment door itself is an original solid wood thing of beauty with a deadbolt that inspires confidence. The unit is really quiet, we saw that kids lived upstairs and were really surprised as we never heard them once.
It’s two short blocks from lower Piazza di Spana and on a block where your neighbors are Giorgio Armani, Mui Mui and Tiffany’s. (There’s a bank with an ATM on the opposite side of the piazza if you run out of euros like we did.) The real gem of this neighborhood is not the big streets but the tiny streets in between. And the tiny streets around the apartment are the best. One of the most beautiful streets is one over called Via Margutta. Via Vittoria and Via Mario de’ Fiori were also some of our favorite neighborhood streets.
Within stumbling distance is a 24-hour grocery store, and two of the best, most reasonably priced restaurants of our entire trip, Dilla and il Gabriello (make reservations for both). We paid the same or more for less superior food else where.
If I HAD to find something less than perfect I would say the apartment lacked enough ice cube trays. That’s right, ice cube trays. I know, it’s silly. My sister had knee surgery and needed to ice her knee after each long day of walking. There was one tiny ice cube tray but us Americans like our ice. We tried to buy some as a gift to the apartment but apparently the entire city center of Rome has none :).
Nevertheless, this apartment was our sanctuary in Rome. We would book this apartment again in a heartbeat and would recommend it without hesitation.
And you couldn’t ask for better hosts than Valeria and Mario.