The Hotel Art on the Spanish Steps offers gorgeous rooms near Piazza di Spagna.

By Diane Vadino

In the 1953 film "Roman Holiday," Gregory Peck played a newsman whose apartment was on Via Margutta, one of Rome's iconic streets. In real life, art galleries and antiques shops line Via Margutta, making it a fitting home for the Hotel Art by the Spanish Steps, a small luxury hotel. The hotel takes its artistic environs seriously, evident from the gorgeous white-marble entrance designed by artist Enzo Catellani. The reception hall is equally impressive with a fantastic blue-and-white vaulted ceiling that's a remnant of the space's original life as a college chapel.

The hotel's rooms are bright and cheerful, and color-coordinated by floor in blue, orange, yellow and green. Bits of poetry from writers including Octavio Paz and Federico Garcia Lorca are etched into glass runners lining the hallways, keeping up the artistic theme. There's a small gym on the premises, but resident athletes may be happier making use of the nearby Villa Borghese, the gorgeous gardens that comprise Rome's second-biggest public park.

Rooms from around $325 per night.

Hotel Art by the Spanish Steps
Via Margutta 56
Rome 00187
+39 06 32 87 11
hotelart.it