I found Hotel Nord Nuova Roma to be pleasant, but I'll try to describe the accommodations in more detail and let you decide for yourself. My girlfriend and I stayed at the hotel the evenings of 3-5 and 9-10 July 2005.

The first room (3-5 July) was nominally a "double", but was actually two twin mattresses pushed together on the same frame. The rates were 105, 115, and 135 euro for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. We initially had a problem with this room because it had two separate twin beds; because we had already occupied the room before we complained they wouldn't change the bed until the next day. So on Monday we kept the same room but they mounted the two mattresses on one frame. I don't know if this is typical of other "double" rooms in the hotel. In addition to the bed(s) the room had a nightstand, a table with small (old-looking) color TV, a comfortable chair, a large wall-mounted mirror above the table, and a closet (I believe with a chest of drawers inside). There was a small safe in the closet but it didn't come with instructions. The decor seemed plain but nice. The bathroom had a small window and a sink, toilet, and bidet, as well as a bathtub with a wall-mounted showerhead (the shower curtain only encircled half the bathtub). The room was on the side of the hotel and overlooked a small street/alley that had some restaurants (Chinese and other) on it. The room had air conditioning, which was nice (it wasn't too strong but maybe we didn't set it high enough).

The second room (9-10 July) was a true double with one large bed; the rate was 105 euro per night for Saturday and Sunday nights. The decor was nicer -- the wood looked fancier, for example. The main differences were that there was no closet although there was a large dresser for clothes (with a safe inside, this time with instructions) and the shower was different: it was a stand-up shower with doors and a detachable hand-held showerhead. It was big enough for two people but just barely. This room had the feature that to enable the lights in the room you had to insert a special key (included with the room key) in a socket near the door. I think this room was more modern that the first room. It also was a smoking room, but that actually was fine once we aired out the room for a while with an open window. (They told us later that the hotel only had six non-smoking rooms and none of them were true doubles; our first room might have been non-smoking.) This room was at the front of the hotel and overlooked a slightly larger and busier street, but the noise wasn't too bad even when the window was open. The air conditioning seemed stronger in this room, but maybe we just set it higher. Interestingly, the doorknob to this room was on the right side of the door and unlocked by turning the key counterclockwise, whereas in the first room the doorknob was on the left and unlocked by turning the key clockwise.

The hotel is quite close to the Termini train station (we took the EuroStar high-speed train to Florence from there). The hotel is particularly near the end of the station that houses the bus terminals and the Termini Metro station. It's probably a five minute walk or so. The Repubblica Metro station is about the same distance but the Termini Metro is nice since both Metro lines intersect there. (By the way, if you want to take the bus, you can buy a ticket at the machines at the bus terminals (or any other major bus stop). If you want to get a 75-minute ticket, for example, press the appropriate button on the machine and insert your 1 euro coin and after some time it will print a ticket and drop it into the bin below. When you get on the bus validate the ticket by inserting it arrow-forward and face-down into the yellow machine, where it will print a time stamp. No one actually checked our tickets during any of our rides, however. The exact same tickets can be used for the Metro: just validate them before passing the turnstile.) From the Termini station we took the 40 Express to the Vatican which ends near Castel Sant'Angelo and St. Peter's Square, and we took the 910 to Villa Borghese and the Borghese Gallery. I didn't time the walk to the Rome city center (we were stopping to do sightseeing along the way), but I imagine it's not more than a half-hour walk to most of the historical sites in the center. We didn't seem to find any really good restaurants near the hotel, but our search was rather casual.

Apparently the hotel has a patio up on the 7th floor with a bar (open from something like 4 PM to 12:20 AM), but we didn't go up there. There was a computer terminal with high-speed internet access for which the rate was 0.35 euro per minute with a minimum charge of 5.25 euro. There are better rates to be had out Rome's various internet cafes (we eventually found one a 15 minute walk away which charged something like 2 euro for 45 minutes). The hotel also had ads stating that the hotel was set up for wireless internet, but I didn't bring my computer with me and don't know what the rates are. I tried using an international calling card from the hotel to place a call to the United States, but the call to the 1-800 number listed on the card wouldn't go through. I ended up going through an international operator and charging it to my credit card: big mistake. The cost was US$50 for a short phone call -- approximately $10 per minute!

We didn't have too much interaction with the staff, but they seemed pleasant (aside from the initial confrontation over the beds in the first room). The desk staff is pretty English-friendly, as is the case in most locations of Rome frequented by tourists. To check into the hotel you'll need to present the passports of everyone staying in the room (this may be due to regulations about foreign visitors registering with the local police) and you give your credit card when you check out. The concierge on our first visit was helpful in suggesting bus lines to get to various locations within the city.

The hotel has a breakfast buffet (ends at 10:30 AM; not sure when it starts) which is pretty nice. They have a selection of rolls, croissants, slices of ham and cheese for sandwiches, some packets of butter and jellies, and cereal bins. They have machines that dispense fruit juices (blood orange, grapefruit, and pineapple) and water, and they serve coffee and tea.

Overall, except for some glitches I found the hotel to be comfortable and conveniently accessible to a wide range of public transportation. If you want to look up the hotel and surrounding neighborhood on a mapping program (e.g., Google Earth, [--]), its coordinates are approximately 41 deg 54' 03.6" N, 12 deg 29' 51.3" E.