La Casa di Elena

Mostly everything in term of price

Location

The rooms have AIRCON ❤️ (necessary for the summer) Very clean, small dorms with a bathroom each (no need to run in the hallways to get to the toilet like other hostels - almost like a private room feeling!), homey feeling, two house cats on the premises. The location is great, a few minutes walk to Manzoni which has both buses & metro stops. It's even walkable distance to Colosseum & Termini Station! Even so, it's on a quiet street and no disturbances at all. I really liked that I could go there as a solo female tourist and feel safe.

I liked my stay there a lot. Only a few downsides: They weren't able to accommodate dietary needs for the included breakfast. Sounds from the hallway/front door echoes through to the rooms. Maybe it could be possible to put up some sound-absorbing fabrics? It's an old house so there's everything that comes with that. We didn't figure out how to lock the bathroom door, but that wasn't really an issue as everyone I stayed with was very respectful and decent people. In my opinion, I paid a reasonable price for the services provided in a big city, and had an excellent stay.

Really lovely staff and a nice relaxed vibe. Breakfast was great and rooms were always clean and tidy. Really good value for money.

I liked the location because it was a little bit gritty but some other solo travellers might be put off by it. I didn’t mind at all. Still felt safe :)

The breakfast was good, I made cheese and salami toasted sandwiches each morning, there was also coffee, juice, cereal, cake, jams, and cookies. Metro and buses close by. Castro, a large supermarket is close. I think this would be a good place to stay in summer when you can sit outside.

Bad start, first morning, the lady came in and saw that I had moved the bedside table a bit, and immediately decided that it had to be moved to the other side of the room as the room was "crowded", also took away one bed; so I had no bedside table for the rest of the two weeks I was there, another bed had two, it was all just very strange. She was nice the rest of the time I was there. I was in the basement mixed room, it was freezing, so was the dining room and bathroom. The dining room had a wall heater installed while I was there, but it doesn't do much, as there's an inch gap under the outside door, and a window wide open in the kitchen. Sound carries in this place, the staff were very loud, at first I thought they were angry, yelling at each other, but came to think it was more conversations from room to room. The man was in the dining room a lot, phone up loud, no ear phones, also had long loud conversations on the phone; not exactly relaxing for anyone else in the room.