Le Charme House

Advantages - good view of a garden, clean new bed sheets, additional blanket. Disadvantages - old, dirty floor (like after a bottle of cola), very weak water pressure (it's a problem when you have long hair) and during my stay it was extremely noisy: canalization is in a bad condition, so it's noisy and neighbors make repairs since early morning. You must know: double bed in my room was two beds! It might be a problem if you travel with a partner.

This was my partner and my first trip to Rome. I found it very difficult to find what I would class a "traditional hotel" in the main city. I didn't want to be too far from the main core so this hotel peaked my fancy due to it's proximity to "The Colosseum" and the reasonable price. Firstly, upon arrival finding the place was a nightmare. The entrance was a massive gate. There are no signs indicating the hotel, only a buzzer surrounded by about 10 others. The buzzer did not work, neither did the phone number that was next to the buzzer. I had tickets to "Vatican City" booked for that afternoon so panic quickly set in. After about a 15 minute wait my partner and I managed to gain access thanks to a neighbour. Upon getting into the building and walking into a court yard it turned out "Le Charme House" was infact a converted apartment on the 4th floor of one of the 4 buildings served by the court yard. I was lucky to be able to get access to the block thanks to another neighbour. Upon finding it, I was lucky enough to find the proprietor who was a very friendly man. Although we were early he kindly let us check in early so we could make our tour that afternoon. First glance of the room was that it was quite bland and boring but not completely terrible. Upon returning that evening, that's when we found small issues. The shower was dreadful, no pressure and completely annoying to get right temperature (at any part of the day). The shower itself was very small, I confess I'm not the smallest of people but I'm not obese - but it was a right pain to get in and out of. The doors were also broken and would not slide. The toilet was obviously added when the room was converted and had some form of waste removal unit that would literally make random loud flushing noises when you weren't anywhere near it. It got annoying especially at night. The room was made up everyday but the towels weren't changed and the cleaner evidently never went out onto the small balcony as a full ashtray that the previous occupants left wasn't emptied the 3 days we were there. On the positive side, it had a working fridge, the beds were company and it's in a great location with the nearest tube (Manzoni) about 5 mins walk away. And as mentioned, the guy running the place was superb. As a budget option and if you just want a place to put your head, I'd recommend it. If you want lavish then I'm afraid this isn't for you.

I got bitten by bed bugs my first night. The manager Ahmed was very helpful and gave me another room, but unfortunately it also had bed bugs, which led me to change hotels. The rooms were fine, no complaint there, but the insects were very disappointing