B-COOL

B-COOL is in via Famagosta, in the Prati quarter of Rome, a stone's throw from the border with Borgo and the Vatican City. Prati is the piece of Rome built at the beginning of the twentieth century with wide streets and Umbertine buildings, and it remains one of the few central quarters where people really do sleep: no nightlife under the windows, but the Vatican Museums, St Peter's Square and Castel Sant'Angelo reachable on foot, and metro line A at Lepanto for everything else. Via Cola di Rienzo, the Roman shopping street, is in the same grid of blocks.

The property

It is a small bed and breakfast, four rooms in all, created inside a fine apartment served by a lift. Each room has a private bathroom with shower and bidet, air conditioning, a flat-screen TV with the streaming services, a fridge, a kettle, a desk and a wardrobe, as well as free Wi-Fi throughout the house. There is luggage storage for the day of departure, and the staff speak Italian, English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Breakfast is a buffet served in the breakfast room, with Italian pastries, juices and cereals. Check-in is to be agreed with the house: there is no reception open twenty-four hours, so it is worth writing the arrival time when booking. There are neither cots nor extra beds, and pets are not allowed.

There is no wellness area here, no pool and no sauna: it is a B&B with four rooms in the centre of Rome, and its promise is a different one. B-COOL welcomes adult guests only, which in a house this small changes the stay in concrete terms: a quiet breakfast room, quiet corridors, and the feeling of being in a private apartment rather than in a hotel. Suited to those visiting Rome as a couple or alone who want the Vatican on the doorstep without paying the price of a hotel in that category.