Italy

Rome

Corso Apartments Ambrose and Carlo Two-bedroom Apartments in Central Rome

This location is wonderfully convenient to shopping and sightseeing. And these two apartments are freshly decorated and well furnished. 

These two apartments couldn't be better located. If you step off the Spanish Steps and walk straight ahead, you'll find them just where Via delle Carrozze intersects with the Corso. Proceed past this building, take a left, and you will find the Pantheon and the wonderful streets that lead over to Piazza Navona and Campo dei Fiori. 

The Via del Corso connects Piazza del Popolo with its obelisk and twin churches and Piazza Venezia that is dominated by the Victor Emmanuel Monument (humorously called "The Typewriter" and the "Candy Chef's Monument").

This immediate area is shopping central with every known and aspiring designer represented in the streets around the Spanish Steps.

The building faces the elegant Grand Plaza Hotel and is next to the wonderful baroque basilica of Saints Ambrose and Carlo. 

There is a small piazza in front of the building which fills up with the motorbikes of people who work in the area. There you will find little dune buggy type vehicles for rent by the hour, the sign says no license required! The price varies, they told me, depending on demand. Another company offers bicycle driven buggies that seat six, a fun way to move around the town. 

The Via del Corso is partially closed to traffic and the street in front of this building is prime strolling territory with a constant parade of Romans and visitors. If you focus away from the Spanish Steps to the west of the Corso, you will find a whole, somewhat separate village. One of the beauties of renting an apartment is that you get to know the city more deeply.

You enter the apartments through a side door in the building. The apartments are technically on the second floor (American designation), but there is a mezzanine level in-between, so it is 35 steps straight up from the front door to the apartments. The steps are fairly steep.

Each apartment is totally separate, but their entrances face each other and there are no other apartments on the stairwell, so a larger party could rent both and move between them without disturbing the neighbors.

See the description and pictures of the individual apartments for more details.

We really enjoyed staying in these apartments.  Our opinion:

• The location is super, close to the historical monuments that I love and fashion shopping that my sister enjoys. 

• All of us, but especially my 15 year old son, enjoyed people watching from the windows of "Ambrose."

• The linens and furnishings are of high quality.

• Although there are few vehicles passing, I think that street sounds could be an issue in "Ambrose." We weren't bothered, but we are sound sleepers. I would suggest those soft little earplugs if you are a restless sleeper.

• "Carlo" is quieter, being on the inside, but no people watching!

• Closet space is limited. 

Request these apartments, please reference Corso. Phone 781.275.1055

Click to enlarge

The neighborhood salumeria (preserved meats) has a small restaurant and a selection of take away.

The original Alfredo's, inventor of Pasta Alfredo, is right behind this block. To the left rises the mound of the Mausoleum of Augustus Caesar. 

This is the view from the Ambrose apartment. You can watch the parade of pedestrians in this limited traffic zone.

Sunday morning, a Bersagliere band passes at a jog while playing traditional tunes.

No license needed to rent these little buggies!

A covered, open-air market, where the countryside comes to the city bringing the freshest of fruits and vegetables, is just two blocks away. 

Ruddy artichokes, a Roman staple, peek out from behind a riot of peppers. The signora, fully dressed for shopping, buys her vegetables for the day.

Every designer and wannabe has a shop in the neighborhood.

The newsstand and cafe in Piazza S. Lorenzo in Lucina beckon you to enjoy your news and cappuccino facing the lovely Romanesque church below.

Romanesque architecture is rare in Rome. The building next door houses a Carabinieri headquarters, so you can watch the proud police come and go. The Carabinieri are military during war and police during peacetime.