http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331 http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331 http://ie2.trivago.com/images/layoutimages/logos/default.png http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/picture-i7609623 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:55:00 +0200 ]]> http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/picture-i7609619 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:53:00 +0200 ]]> http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/picture-i7609617 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:51:00 +0200 ]]> http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/picture-i6861581 Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:17:00 +0200 ]]> http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/picture-i6861575 Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:17:00 +0200 ]]> http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/review-o561219 Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:21:00 +0200
]]> http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/review-o522251 Sat, 08 May 2010 17:15:00 +0200 http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/review-o441035 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:52:00 +0200 http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/review-o441009 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:07:00 +0200 http://www.trivago.co.uk/rome-44337/hotel/napoleon-17331/review-o440590 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:33:00 +0200 There are many reasons why we choose the Napoleon. There’s the friendliness of the staff by now we’re on first name terms, which I just love. Whether I breeze out in the morning for the first smoke of the day or almost crawl in having drunk too deeply of Rome’s attractions and I promise you when I say “drunk I am speaking metaphorically well usually, anyway the reception is always the same, and it’s always one which makes me feel as if the staff are actually happy that I’m there. And between you and me I think they are because in an age where the shallow, the indifferent and the transient appear to be the governing triumvirate, Hotel Napoleon ploughs its own furrow and actually LIKES having guests. It shows in the welcome, the eagerness to help and the ease with which all business is done. I’m sure that they’ll never please everyone, but they seem to please most and they certainly push all my own personal buttons. They’ll organise almost anything you can want or need for your stay in Rome, whether it be metro passes or restaurant bookings, taxis or theatre tickets. And they’ll do it all with a smile and no expectation of anything other than a “grazie. I love the place to bits. You can tell, I’m sure.
There’s no point in my banging on about the handiness of the metro station it’s right outside the front door, you know or the fact that the breakfast is extremely comprehensive, because those points are very well covered elsewhere. The important thing for me is to get across that Hotel Napoleon is a great place to stay for soooo many reasons. The proximity to the Colosseum is useful, but Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II enjoys very good communications to many of Rome’s essential sites and sights. Spagna handy for those steps everyone talks about but can’t ever actually get to use or even see, come to think of it - because of the number of people sitting on them 24 hours a dayis just up the metro line, as is Ottaviano, a brief walk from St Peter’s. For the more athletic tourists there’s Colli Albani the other way up the line stroll across Parco Appia and try your legs out on the famous Appian Way just one of the reasons I ended up staggering in one night after a five and a half hour wander which was actually shorter than last year’s. Or you might want to get off at Repubblica and navigate your way down Via Nazionale to look at those shops you’ll never be able to afford to buy anything in and onto Via del Corso for much more of the same but this time taken to a truly professional level. The Forum, Palatine and Capitoline Museums are all within easy walking distance, although if you don’t feel up to that you can change at Termini and take your chances at the busy, bustling scrum that is always a characteristic of Colosseo station. If you like your cuisine Italian and a wee bit gourmet, there’s the very good “Monti just around the corner ask one of the concierges to book it, but don’t expect to get in the same night or if you just want a pannini there’s a good selection very near the hotel right next to Santa Maria Maggiore. Numerous other eating opportunities are sprinkled around the hotel, and caffes, too. My favourite is Caffe Tabachi, where the waiter always looks so sad you’d think his cat’s just died, but I’ve also enjoyed a good cappuccino at Bar Krystal just to the left as you leave the hotel.
Many swear by the areas around Spanish Steps and I’m sorry if I offend any of you here, but both that and Trevi are packed to the gunnels with tourists every day and night of the year and neither can offer the peace and quiet that is the norm on PVE of an evening. Every room faces inwards over a courtyard. Certainly if you really NEED a view out of your hotel room the Napoleon’s probably not going to be your bag. But views in Rome come at a cost, and it’s not only a financial one. You can, for instance, acquire a room overlooking Trevi Fountain. Sounds just dreamy, doesn’t it? But try sleeping with the constant noise tourists throughout the day, revellers throughout the night and just at that twighlight, before-the-dawn, moment when you think that at last silence has begun its blissful reign, along come the street cleaners and once again all is sonic chaos. Peace and quiet are at a premium in Rome. But they’re built surprisingly cheaply- into your bill at the Napoleon and are a valuable commodity indeed.
So what can you expect to see when you step out on your first morning? You have a park across the road, bordered at intervals with delightful flower kiosks. Inside the garden are the remains of an ancient fountain dating back to the days of Imperial Rome. Nowadays it’s home to a number of the local cats, who always appreciate a little titbit of something or other and make every sign of understanding English as well as I do. There’s a colonnaded walkway most of the way around the piazza, which is extremely useful on wet days and it should be borne in mind that, lucky as we always seem to have been, Rome has more rain than London.
Around the corner, just up Via Leopolde, is the ancient Auditorium of Maecenas which, to my eternal irritation, I’ve never found actually open. Continue down that street and you’ll very soon be in the Park of Trajan with the Colosseum right in front of you damn, I said I wouldn’t cover what everyone else says. Santa Maria Maggiore, too, is just a short walk. If you like your history a little older, the Baths of Diocletian are just outside Repubblica station two stops on the metro and Porta Maggiore, one of the old gateways, is a short walk for the suicidal in search of motorised death. Seriously, it’s a breathtaking piece of masonry and well worth the risk.
So what’s the area like? Much has been made over recent years of the run down nature of I don’t get this sure, it’s an urban experience, but what part of any city DOES have a bucolic, rural feel? You may read elsewhere that the Esquiline as an area is a little run down, but I say not a bit of itany charge of tattiness is refuted in a much more practical way than my words here can ever suggest by the shop a couple of doors to your left as you leave the Naploeon that sells eight hundred and fifty really that’s 850.00 Euro suits and the building on the right hand side of the square. The one with the scaffolding and the polythene all over itThis forgotten, run down quarter yeah, sure is the new home to Italy’s equivalent to the General Medical Council, who don’t appear to share the view that the area is one to be written off lightly. This is our third time at Hotel Napoleon. And while being the sort of naturally self-preserving, scaredy-cat and just plain yellow people that we are, we’ve wandered happily around this area at all hours returning from Repubblica along Via Terme di Dioclezian, passing right alongside Temini itself along Via Giovanni and down Via Mamiani and walking halfway around Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II yeah, I know it’s the long way round but it’s a nice walk or returning from Centro Storico up either Via Cavour or through Trajan’s gardens a very quiet area which in almost any other city would be a mugger’s idea of paradise at night has, so far, presented us with no moments of fear. I feel safer there than I do at home in my little village of 350 souls. It’s a safe area.
I’ll say that again and I’d appreciate it if you turn the volume up to 11 this time
It’s a safe area.

I’m aware that I’m babbling so I’ll stop. Here’s the long and short. I stay at the Napoleon because I feel like I’m among friends. Or rather I feel that way because I AM among friends. The area is safe and the hotel is splendid because its management and staff actually care about their guests. I’ve just returned home. I can’t wait to be back.
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