Brunelleschi Hotel

Brunelleschi Hotel

At Piazza Santa Elisabetta, in the heart of Florence, the hotel is built around the Torre della Pagliazza, a circular tower embedded in its façade that was first raised somewhere between the sixth and seventh centuries, resting on Roman foundations linked to a bath structure from ancient Florentia. A restoration completed in 1988, the year the current hotel dates to, uncovered a Roman calidarium beneath the building, now kept as a private, on-request museum, the one detail no neighbouring hotel in central Florence can claim. The hotel itself keeps a compact scale: 96 rooms across five floors, sizes ranging from a snug 194-square-foot Executive Classic Double to a 560-square-foot Deluxe Family Room, most with air conditioning, minibar and free Wi-Fi as standard. The tower itself now holds the Tower Bar, and Osteria della Pagliazza serves handmade pasta and Tuscan classics a few steps from where breakfast is laid out each morning in a former medieval church. Guests who want a fitness room with Technogym kit, a spa, a concierge who remembers preferences from one visit to the next, or a five-minute walk to the Uffizi will find all of it here; guests hoping to drive in and park for free, or to keep costs down on breakfast and airport transfers, should look elsewhere, since parking runs €55 a day, a one-way transfer €79, and extra breakfasts €25 per person. Families are accommodated with dedicated rooms and childcare on request, and pets are welcome throughout. What lingers afterward isn't the décor. It's the knowledge of sleeping directly above a Roman bath older than Florence's own name. Brunelleschi Hotel sits above a sixth-century tower and a Roman bath, with a private museum built around what the restoration uncovered. Ninety-six rooms, a Tower Bar inside ancient stone, and a five-minute walk to the Uffizi. Not for guests wanting free parking or budget transfers.