Hotel Eden - Top Travel Destination

To know the Hotel Eden is to know the pleasure of a real hospitality.

And I am really pleased to give you a tour of one of the great hotels, not just of Europe, but of the world.

One of those rare hotels that has become part of the story of the city of Rome.

The Hotel Eden sits on the Via Lodovici, poised above the Spanish steps, beside the gardens of the Villa Borghese.

What an address! Close enough to get the great commotion of Rome to walk straight into it.

But somehow...

Once you're through the doors, you feel in an actual different world.

And the hotel has a wonderful phrase about itself.

To know Eden is to know Rome.

I think they're right.

The Hotel Eden has been watching Rome change for nearly 140 years.

Its story begins in 1889.

There was actually a hotelier, as I read up about this extraordinary place, called Francesco Nistelvec.

He saw an elegant apartment building and realized that it could become something much more ambitious.

Europe at this time was changing.

The railway, believe it or not, was the main transforming element.

And wealthy Europeans who had once made their stately way towards Rome by horse and carriage could now arrive by train.

Then great Mr. Nesselbeck understood just what that meant.

Rome needed a new hotel and so on the 10th of October 1889, Hotel Eden opened.

It was an extraordinary first opening.

The first hotel in Rome to offer a lift, electricity, heating and running water.

This wasn't just a luxury, this was the future and travellers sat up and noticed.

In fact, Murray's handbook advisor, the sort of Michelin guide of the time, described the Hotel Eden as the best hotel in Rome.

The Eden became a favorite of wealthy international visitors coming to the Eternal City.

And boy, did they keep coming.