This article from NYTimes.com
In Rome, Doing as Few Romans Do
June 16, 2002
By FRANCINE PROSE
LIKE the rest of staff at the Rome Cavalieri Hilton, the
reception clerk had the looks of a movie star and the
patience of a saint. Graciously, she pretended not to see
my eyes glaze over as she described the hourly shuttle bus
that picked up guests at the hotel (in the Monte Mario
district, northwest of the city center) and, within 30
minutes, delivered them to downtown Rome and its tourist
attractions. The Trevi Fountain? The Piazza Navona? Sure,
O.K., whatever. Did she honestly imagine we planned to
leave the hotel?
I kept wondering how happy I would have been to arrive in
Rome and find myself so near and yet so far from the
Eternal City. But my husband, Howie, and I were spending
two months at the American Academy in Rome, and for us, a
day and a night at the Hilton - which has recently
undergone a $15 million refurbishment - was 24 hours in
paradise.
Who needed the stresses of urban life when we had a
sweeping view of the city from our furnished private
terrace, mirrored on both sides to expand the panorama, and
from our spacious bedroom and sitting area upholstered in
lemon and teal? Why hike to the Villa Borghese when the
hotel had its own 15-acre Mediterranean garden, woodland
trails, an outdoor pool, a putting green, two clay tennis
courts, an aviary and a flock of Montgelana hens that
considerately lay eggs with a low-cholesterol content,
which are served at breakfast.
Why poke around the chilly ruins of the Baths of Caracalla
when the hotel's health spa worked so hard to make us feel
like patricians in ancient Rome? We swam in the heated,
glass-domed indoor pool decorated with columns and
classical busts, and equipped with a fireplace; steamed in
the softly lighted Turkish bath, surrounded by mosaics;
roasted in the sauna; then cooled off in the whirlpool. We
both had massages and, if we'd wanted, could have gotten
facials, haircuts and workouts with a personal trainer in
the high-tech gym and weight room; taken yoga and dance
classes; and enjoyed a beauty process called, mysteriously,
the caviar treatment.
Among the things I loved about the health spa was the
selection of fattening pastries you could buy in its cafe.
In fact, no place in the hotel was very far from food.
>From 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. (last seating, 11:30 p.m.), you can
eat at the garden restaurant, Il Giardino dell'Uliveto,
which has an excellent lunch buffet, or have a snack or
drink at the adjacent cafe, or have your meal brought
directly to your chaise longue beside the pool. There's tea
with harp music every afternoon in the lobby, where the
cocktail hour features rococo mixed drinks called astros,
each named after a sign of the zodiac. And had we brought a
pet, Fifi or Fido could have enjoyed a selection, delivered
to the room, from the four-course Menu del Vostro Fedele
Amico.
Our room-service American breakfast arrived quickly, with
the eggs and coffee still hot; we tried not to be offended
by the idea of "American" reflected in the gargantuan meal
of juice, eggs, pancetta, pancakes, yogurt, toast,
pastries, cereal, fruit salad and coffee.
At the (metaphorical and literal) summit of the food chain
at the Hilton is the rooftop restaurant, La Pergola, which
has been awarded two Michelin stars. I admit I had to
repress the urge to bolt when the waiter brought our water
menu, a booklet classifying the available bottled waters by
their region of origin and providing more information than
I needed on their mineral content and health benefits. And
perusing the pricey two-volume wine list - nearly as heavy
as the Rome phone directory, presumably listing only a
fraction of the 48,000 bottles in the cellar - required a
certain amount of work.
But I was instantly won over by the amuse-bouches brought
to our table: a mouthful of vitello tonnato; a buttery
scrap of lamb carpaccio; a cherry tomato stuffed with a
single fried artichoke leaf; and kind of a cocktail made of
puréed arugula and lemon juice that tasted like the essence
of spring.
The meal - prepared by the chef Heinz Beck - was inspired.
I loved the fried zucchini flower, light as a sigh,
floating on a saffron broth in a bowl that seemed to have
been specially designed for the dish, and accompanied by
chunks of lobster. Our roast duck appeared in stages: first
the breast, sliced and served with mustard sauce, then a
duck broth with duck ravioli, then the leg, with a
peppercorn gravy and a kind of silver clamp that again
seemed expressly invented for its purpose. Before dessert,
new candles (evocative of a birthday cake) were brought to
the table to change the lighting and the mood, and with our
coffee came a silver chest of drawers, each of which
contained two perfect miniature pastries.
Regardless of my qualms about about the silliness of a
water menu, the decadence of doggy room service, and the
experience of going to Rome to stay in a hotel that looks
as if it belongs in Miami Beach, I'd definitely return to
La Pergola. And it seemed to me that the Cavalieri, which
had plenty of very young guests, would be a haven for
families needing a break from the challenge of safely
shepherding the kids across the busy Piazza Venezia - which
was where we were headed when, the next morning, we left
the Hilton and returned to the noisy, crowded, beautiful
city below.
I used to fantasize about hiding out in museums until after
closing time so I could sleep in the historic bedrooms -
the re-creations of apartments from Venetian palazzi or
French chateaus. Spending a night in the Palazzo Ruspoli
allowed me to live out the fantasy, and at the same time -
as so often happens - only kicked the fantasy up to a whole
other level. Now, if I could afford $700 a night, I'd like
to live in the Napoleon III suite.
Set in a 16th-century palace, a somewhat fortresslike
building on the corner of the Via Condotti and the Via del
Corso in the heart of Rome's designer-shopping district,
the suite consists of three magnificent rooms each the size
of a large one-bedroom apartment in New York, but with
higher ceilings. In January, the redecorated suite was
opened as part of a luxury two-suite bed-and-breakfast by
the Principessa Letizia Ruspoli, who lives in the building.
There is no sign or anything else to indicate the presence
of the B & B as you enter the courtyard and take the
birdcage elevator or the sweeping marble staircase; not
even the women who worked in an office facing the courtyard
seemed to know that the suite existed. Luckily, we called
ahead, and the Principessa sent a man downstairs to help
with our luggage and show us the way.
The first and most formal of the three rooms is done in a
pale silvery green; the second is decorated in shades of
gold; in the bedroom, the canopied bed is covered and
draped with a subtle checked fabric. All three rooms
feature stenciled walls, parquet floors, antique
furnishings and silver, velvet and brocade, and lots of
trompe l'oeil.
There are embroidered bed linens and towels and gold-plated
faucets in the rather tiny but handsomely decorated marble
bathroom; tapestries; beamed and painted ceilings; massive
Watteau-esque paintings, which, like the rest of the suite,
are beautifully lighted; a mini-bar; and a small kitchen.
In short, it's like being transported back to the 18th
century and being allowed to take along all the comforts of
modernity: a plug for your computer modem, a VCR and CD
player, a satellite TV with hundreds of channels, from CNN
and the BBC to Al Jazeera and a station from Montenegro.
A Continental breakfast (cornutti, fresh-squeezed
blood-orange juice and, puzzlingly, instant coffee) was
delivered to our door at the time we requested and served
in silver pots, on a silver tray in the green room.
Everything - the tiny clip-on reading lamp, the antique pen
on the desk, the pots of flowers, the package of bath salts
- seems carefully thought out to provide the maximum
possible pleasure and convenience. A butler and a tour
guide are available on request.
The friendly and extremely personable Principessa, to whom
I spoke when I called to make reservations, speaks
excellent English. During our stay, she was away, and we
were welcomed by her equally charming cousin Claudia, who
showed us the less grand but also delightful Roof Garden
Suite. It has two rooms that are less formal than the
Napoleon Suite's but still elegant, and a huge terrace
offering marvelous views of Rome.
Travelers requiring the availability and reassurance of a
hotel restaurant, a concierge and 24-hour room service
might have some qualms about staying at the Palazzo Ruspoli
- but we would have been happy to take up residence there
forever.
We saw quite a bit of the Hotel Eden, a few blocks from the
Via Veneto, as we traipsed from room to room in search of
one that was acceptable, even by the most undemanding
standards.
The first room was large and sunny, but a powerful smell of
stopped drains and faulty plumbing emanated from the
bathroom. The second room was minuscule. The third - where
we finally stayed - was big enough, charmingly decorated
with attractive furnishings, including a romantic
four-poster bed. But because it faced an inner courtyard,
it was also dark and somewhat airless.
After a few hours, the same unfortunate smell started
coming from the bathroom, spoiling our admiration of the
gold leaf with which it was decorated. The plumber who came
to unblock the pipes - succeeding, as it turned out, only
temporarily - flooded the bathroom, and two chambermaids
arrived to clean up.
The hotel bar on the rooftop, La Terrazza, has a gorgeous
view of Rome, as does the restaurant, which, less
appealingly, also has the atmosphere of a suburban country
club back home. The service was attentive, but the food
ranged from the acceptable to the downright weird; the
stewed papaya, spiced with mace, that accompanied my roast
suckling pig suggested a sort of slimy pumpkin pie.
Endearingly, the desk clerks had noticed, when they checked
my passport, that it was my birthday, and a cake and a
greeting card was brought to our table at dinner. But the
vague sense of guilt that this thoughtfulness inspired -
how could I be so dissatisfied with a hotel that remembered
my birthday? - was rapidly dispelled the next morning by
the unripe fruit, greasy pancetta, rubbery cheese and stale
rolls in the breakfast buffet.
Visitor Information
Rome Cavalieri Hilton, Via Cadlolo 101, 00136 Rome; (800)
445-8667 or (39-06) 35091, fax (39-06) 3509-2241; www.cavalieri-hilton.it, has 372 rooms. A
standard double is $474, at 1.09 euros to the dollar.
Continental breakfast is $29. The use of the fitness center
is $28; a massage, $80. Dinner at La Pergola for two with
wine, about $320.
Palazzo Ruspoli, Largo Goldoni 56, 00186, Rome; (39-347)
7337-098, or phone and fax (39-06) 688-08083; www.prestigiousrome.com. The Napoleon III Suite costs $711 a night,
Continental breakfast included. Roof garden suite, $310.
Hotel Eden, Via Ludovisi 49, 00187, Rome; (39-06) 478-121,
fax (39-06) 482-1584; www.hotel-eden.it, has 134 rooms and suites. A
standard double is $660, but in off-season we negotiated
down to $541. Continental breakfast, $25.70. Dinner for two
with wine at La Terraza, about $230.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/16/travel/ROME.html?ex=1025137427&ei=1&en=cff76488de25b128