REVIEW | ITA Airways lounge Piazza di Spagna Rome Airport

It was spring 2022 with the biggest COVID-19 travel restrictions gradually being lifted it was time for the first big holiday for my boyfriend and I. As I wanted to convince my boyfriend that travelling without his beloved car can also be fun I decided to drag him along on a Mediterranean cruise on Celebrity Reflection, starting from the Italian port of Civitavecchia near Rome.

After finally arriving at the airport after the mess that was the arrival in the port of Rome, we made our way to terminal 1 where the ITA Airways check-in was located.

As we were flying business class we were able to make use of the sky priority check-in area. Due to there being only two slow working agents, it took ages before it was our turn. Thankfully we had access to the fast-lane security as the security lines for the normal check where horrendous. At check-in we also received the bad news that ITA Airways did not have a lounge in the A area where all European flights leave from as the newly opened part of the A terminal where the new ITA Airways lounge is to be wasn’t fully finished yet with plenty of work still underway.

The terminal was also unbearingly hot, maybe due to all the building work the air conditioning wasn’t switched on?

As I knew that ITA Airways had a lounge open in the E area, for non-Schengen flights we decided to head over there after double checking at a information desk of ITA Airways. There the agent said it should be possible, as long as we left enough time to return back to the A gates as there might be additional security checks.

It was also quite a long trek to the other side of the airport, so we can see why they didn’t advertise the Piazza di Spagna lounge at check-in.

The lounge itself is located in the new-ish E pier, just beyond the new international shopping area. I had to use the airport app to locate it, as it wasn’t very clearly signposted. The lounge itself isn’t the biggest, but it is decorated in a nice Italian design kind of way. There is a huge bar with bartenders preparing drinks on demand.

In the middle there was also a buffet area where only half was setup with some cold plates. There was still a staff member serving you here, but she made sure you had generous sized portions of good food. To the side there was also an empty pizza kitchen which I assume could be used to provide fresh pizza, but clearly wasn’t in use anymore.

Throughout the lounge there were plenty of different seating options. Even though there where windows at the fae end of the lounge, they looked out onto a corridor and had some kins of window wrap on it, blocking any view.