Villa Franca Hotel

A small but friendly hotel only four blocks from the Termini (Central Railway Station) and just around the corner from the Castro Pretorio metro station on line B.
The walk from the station to the hotel, about fifteen to twenty minutes, however passes through an area where drunks and drop-outs tended to congregate, during our visit at least.
If you have light or weekend baggage only, I would advocate taking the metro from the Termini to Castro Pretoria, the very next station.
A single metro ticket cost just one Euro each anywhere on the system and avoided passing through this area.
At the Castro Pretorio, just go through the exit barrier and keep straight on to the end of the passageway ahead of you. At the end, take the steps to the left and once at street level turn back on yourself and take the first turning on the left, the Via San Martino di Battaglia.
Then take the first turning on the left again, the Via Villafranca, and the hotel is on your right half way down the street.
The rooms are small but pleasantly appointed. Ours looked out onto an untidy inner area but I do not believe the hotel had control over this area.
A hair drier is installed but tea making facilities are not in the room as a matter of course.
If you ask (ring room service on 706) for a tea and coffee making tray with kettle, cups and saucers, sachets of tea, coffee and sugar, together with a jug of fresh milk is brought to your room and provided free of charge. The milk can be kept cold in the room's mini-bar.
When you leave the room each day, put the tray into the cupboard or else the maid will remove it and you will have to request it again. The barman was then happy to give you replacement supplies and fresh milk to keep you going.
The bathroom had only a shower which was flush with the floor. Even with careful use of the curtain, you could not help stop water flowing out onto the tiled floor. Be careful, those tiles are very slippery when wet.
The hotel has no restaurant but in the street immediately behind the hotel are several restaurants.
The room card the hotel gives you provides a 10% discount at one in particular in that street and we ate there whenever possible (they are closed on a Saturday).
The food was excellent, the atmosphere was very friendly, and the food was excellent.
We paid less there for a three course meal with wine than we did for a snack on the boulevard straight ahead from St Peter's Square.
Breakfast was good but the egg, bacon and sausage always seemed to be cold. The bacon even came out from the kitchen cold. There was no microwave to reheat it. The egg was hot when it first came out but it always contained brown pieces where it had caught while cooking.
They lacked any system of keeping the hot food hot. However there were plenty of other items to make a good breakfast without that. The breakfast room is long and narrow and therefore seemed very crowded when everyone was at the buffet together.
The drinks came from a machine but the staff seemed inundated and we frequently had to ask for cereal bowls, saucers, and for the drinks machine to be topped up so as to provide a palatable drink.
The staff would always quickly oblige and apologise when asked but they seemed unable to keep on top of everything.
However, for the price paid, especially in a city like Rome, we had good value and would return to this hotel again.
It was extremely quiet whilst many hotels seemed to be on very busy and very noisy boulevards.