Hotel Eden, Rome, Italy

The Hotel Eden is just off the Via Veneto in Rome and is known as the 'the jewel in the Forte crown'. This luxury hotel has long been a favourite of English travellers, and gained the ultimate accolade of some ribbon cutting by Margaret Thatcher on the completion of its renovations in 1995.

The facilities

Staff at this luxury hotel are friendly rather than snooty, and the elegant white marble lobby with its comfortably furnished English drawing room, complete with roaring fire in winter, is cool and comfortable. On the top floor, too, there is a wonderful restaurant with a 180 degree panoramic view. If you don't stay here, eat here, but book weeks in advance.

The rooms

Upstairs, the intention has been to create a discreet, private house feel. The narrow corridors are plain cream with a thick blue carpet, not inviting any corridor banter with fellow guests, just a mumbled “Excuse me,” as you squeeze past. The 121 rooms at this luxury hotel are divided into two categories, superior and deluxe, and because they come in a variety of sizes you cannot be guaranteed space unless you opt for a deluxe - at these prices not a lot dearer than a superior. You're also likely to get a decent view, which is one of this luxury hotel's selling points, because it has wonderful Roman views across the Villa Borghese gardens to St Peters beyond from one side - 4th and 5th floors are best for this, and 5th floor rooms have little balconies.

The rooms themselves, though sometimes small, are well proportioned, with high corniced ceilings. They are decorated in the main in early French empire style, with wicker backed bedheads, discreetly patterned wallpapers, and the odd hand-painted antique furniture piece - the rest are good repro. Like a comfortably English country house, the paintings and antique prints are well chosen and hung in groups, and rooms sport a variety of elegant table lamps. Where walls are painted, the colours chosen are dusty - duck egg blue, sage etc. Most rooms have little entrance lobbies, and small simple chandeliers. Windows are tall and shuttered, and curtains, in fine, subdued fabrics, are swagged. On the 6th floor they have three interconnecting modern rooms with wall to wall glass and amongst the best panoramas in Rome - you can lie in the bath like Nero and visualize Rome burning.