Rome Rising: A New Wave of Hotels Brings Creative Flair to the Eternal City

There’s a reason Rome is nicknamed “the eternal city”—and not just for the endless remnants of bygone times to uncover across its cobbled streets and bucket-list historical sights. It’s also because there’s never a bad time to go (except, perhaps, during the sweltering and tourist-thronged month of August).

That being said, over the course of 2023, a new guard of hotels has arrived to offer a range of perspectives on the city—from the Bulgari Hotel, which honors both the brand’s legacy as a Rome-founded jewelry house and the rich history of the building that houses it, to a new outpost of the Edition hotel group, which celebrates the vibrant creative spirit of the younger generations currently making their mark in the city.

Here, find our guide to the new wave of hotels reimagining Rome for the modern traveler.

Photo: Courtesy of Bulgari Hotels & Resorts

This June, another layer of history was added to the grand Piazza Augusto Imperatore, which houses the mausoleum of the first Roman emperor, Augustus: the Bulgari Hotel Roma. Situated within an enormous Mussolini-era Rationalist building that has been meticulously renovated from top to toe (a four-year-long process due to its historic significance), the idea that the hotel—which also sits a short walk away from the Roman jewelry house’s headquarters—would deliver opulence at the grandest scale is something of a given. And once you’ve stepped through its doors, you’ll know immediately that you’re in Bulgari-land, with glittering mosaic details, rippled marbles, lacquered wood, and crisp neutrals covering every surface.

Yet while the glamorous, gilded Bulgari hotel formula is all present and correct, it’s also underpinned by a very Italian design rigor that nods to the building’s origins in the 1930s, whether in the Ginori vases from the same decade designed by Gio Ponti, or the various original mid-century pieces dotted throughout the property. There’s also a lavishly appointed spa complex inspired by the ancient Roman Baths of Caracalla that manages to be at once sumptuous and soothing. Not least in its dramatic centerpiece: a 20-meter pool featuring eight columns of arabesque marble, with sparkling niches of black-and-gold housing both relaxation areas and 19th-century replicas of classical statues. For all these cutting-edge luxuries, though, the project was underpinned by a deep reverence for the city that surrounds it, including a partnership with the Torlonia Foundation, whose collection of sculptures Bulgari is helping to restore. Not only is the Bulgari Hotel Roma ushering in another chapter in Rome’s complex history, but it’s also looking firmly to its future. —Liam Hess

Photo: Courtesy of The Rome Edition