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Rooms ready for royalty -- Rome's Regina Hotel Baglioni
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From Style Correspondent Elsa Klensch
October 14, 1998
Web posted at: 12:20 a.m. EDT (0020 GMT)
ROME (CNN) -- A hotel fit for a queen is the Regina Hotel Baglioni on the glamorous Via Veneto. The Regina is being restored to its original glory for Rome's jubilee celebration in the year 2000.
The queen is Margherita of Savoy, who lived at the hotel when it was first built almost 100 years ago.
Both the architecture and interiors reflect what the Italians call the English Liberty style -- the opulence of London in the Edwardian era.
Company vice president Luca Magni says that since all of the original drawings of the hotel were lost, painstaking research was necessary for the restoration.
"What we are trying to do is give the client an idea of the elegant Italy of the past," he says. "The facade is original; much of the furniture we have here belonged to Regina Margherita."
Of the hotel's 127 guest rooms and seven suites, the most regal is, of course, the queen's suite.
Here her favorite colors, salmon and green, are luxuriously interpreted on the walls and soft furniture.
The suite, on the second floor, has a bird's eye view of the palazzo that was built for the queen and now houses the American embassy.
Regina Margherita loved French furniture and that's what is in her suite, including the late 19th century dining table and chairs.
The restaurant is as high-style as the queen's suite. The carpets, curtains and wall fabrics reflect the Liberty period.
The restaurant serves both international cuisine and dishes from the regions in and around Rome.
Rigatoni alla' matriciana is a traditional dish that Regina Margherita is sure to have enjoyed, as the recipe dates back centuries.
Hotel director Alberto Zampi says managing the hotel gives him pleasure.
"I think that people, when they stay in a place like this, they think they've lived and slept in a historical place. We make lots of efforts to make sure they leave the hotel in a happy mood."