Rome: Hotel Forum Room

 Let's take a look at our room! We were given room 306 which had a fine view (see next post). This is what the room looks like from the doorway. On our arrival, there were decorative bedspreads on the beds, so this photo was obviously not taken on the day we arrived but further into our trip.

 As we've found often in Italy, two twin beds is quite a common arrangement. This hotel was originally a convent, built in the 17th century, for the church located next door.

 A picture of Rome hangs above the beds.

 There was really not a good place to store suitcases, so I stored mine in front of the nightstand.

 This shows the layout of the hotel, and where our room was located.

 The desk in the room. We should have taken our belongings off before taking the photo (yellow bag, sunglasses, book on upper left), oh well.

 The tiny TV with about 10 stations available. From the fuzzy picture, I'm assuming they are received via antenna.

 This is the light switch by the door for the overhead light. The bulbs appeared to be either 40 or 60 watt equivalents.

 We only figured out one of these three buttons at the top of the door. the one in the middle is the breaker reset (we tripped it once!).

 The light switch for the bathroom is located just outside the bathroom. On the left is an electrical outlet - this is where we plugged in our iron.

 Here is the control for the air conditioner. We were grateful an air conditioner was available as the first few days in Rome were very humid! That coincided with the days when it sprinkled for a few minutes. On the days with no rain, it felt much less humid outside. Note there is no temperature control - only on/off and fan speed. The noises the air conditioner emanated were like nothing we'd heard before. It actually sounded like parts were going to come flying out of the ceiling at times. Listen to the video at the end of this post.

 The ceiling light, with what I would estimate to be 40 to 60 watt bulbs.

 This is where the air conditioning unit was obviously located, judging from the sound. Listen to the video below.

 The parquet floors.

 Another angle. While there looks to be dirt in the corners, it really did not look that bad in person. It is really decades of wear, not necessarily surface dirt. There are new hotels you can stay in if you want mint condition. But if you want true Italian flavor and 17th century ambiance, well it's not gonna look brand new.

 And there is the bathroom door. Shall we enter?

 The sink, toilet, and typical Italian tile.

 A bidet was located directly across from the toilet.

 It was great to find a hair dryer. Only drawback was that the button had to be held in to keep it running. That's by design, but we're not sure why.

 A shelf to the left of the sink.

 Knobs for flushing the toilet.

 The shower stall.

 Shower floor.

 Shelf in the shower.

Back of bathroom door.

 Now let's look outside the room. This is the hallway outside our door.

 The elevator was tiny and we could use the exercise anyway, so we typically took the stairs. Remember that the ground floor in European buildings is zero ("0"), so 306 is actually on the fourth floor.

 Going down another flight on a different day.

 The stairs themselves.

 A picture in the hallway.

A quick look around the room in video:

A sample of what the air conditioner sounded like. Note that the low speed did get quieter after it ran for awhile. We used it as white noise to drown out Via dei Forum Imperiali at night. The hotel staff had to know what this unit sounded like because we left it running when we left for the day a few times and they had shut it off by the time we returned.

Ever wonder what is on Italian TV? Here is a video showing the channels that were available:

So was the Hotel Forum accurately represented on the Hotel Forum website? You be the judge!