Impressions: First the good: the location in the Prati district of Rome, close to shopping, restaurants and the Vatican was excellent. There was a grocery store below street level in the same block and it was less than a 10 minute walk to the Vatican Museums entrance. The Unit we eventually ended up in was clean and the fellow who gave us the keys and showed us around was friendly, spoke excellent English, and was extremely helpful, providing directions to buses and restaurants in the area. The elevator was also funky. Unfortunately, the booking.com and budgestplaces.com (which is somehow affiliated with booking.com) description was very misleading. We had booked a car from the airport and were dropped off at the address provided in the booking confirmation (via Ottaviano 73), but it turns out that the unit we were actually assigned was several blocks away. We did arrive at via Ottaviano about 20 minutes earlier than planned and specified in our booking confirmation, but when we called the local number in the confirmation documents, the fellow on the phone seemed a little surprised that we were arriving that day. When he did show up (again he was very friendly) he explained that this wasn’t the location of our unit and that we had to walk a few blocks to the actual apartment. It was in the same area (but further from the Vatican and further from the Ottaviano metro station). The fellow had an associate drive up to haul our luggage (fortunately Pangeans travel light since the car was quite small) and one of our group drove with the associate to the actual apartment on via Cola di Rienzo. The unit, as mentioned above, was clean and the bed in the bedroom was comfortable. The small kitchen had a cooktop and a mini fridge and all the necessary kitchenware was there (though it wasn’t until the second day that someone thought to look in the TV cabinet and discovered the cache of cups, glasses, a moka pot, and cutlery). The unit would have been perfect for a couple, or a couple with 2 or 3 children, as there was a fold out bed in the living area and a bed in a mezzanine loft (accessed by incredibly narrow stairs). And Cola di Rienzo is a prime shopping street with a mix of local and designer shops. However, the unit was not a “two bedroom apartment” as advertised and shown on at least some of the photographs on the listing. Since we were travelling with another couple (honourary Pangeans), the arrangements were less than perfect. The experience also left us with a bitter taste since the photos on the website (some of which were photos of the unit we ended up with, but these were mixed in with photographs of what we can only assume were other units in their portfolio) gave a false impression of the unit.
Details: La Casa di Piero 2, via Ottaviano 73, Prati Roma, 00193 Italy. Booking rate: 120 Euros/night (VAT included). The unit we actually stayed in was located at via Cola di Rienzo 173.
Rating: P P – If the unit was more accurately described with an actual address and we were only travelling as a couple or as a family, La Casa di Piero 2 would have garnered four P’s out of a possible seven. However, because of the misleading advertising we can only award it two P’s.