Rome recommendations

hot fuss

Hi,

Heading to Rome for a long weekend in June. Does anyone have any recommendations on places to stay, areas to stay in or anything else really!!
Ta

hot fuss

Surely someone's been to Rome!! Anyone.....?

zemphis

I was in Rome last May for five days and loved it! When we stayed, we stayed in a small place very near to St Peter's, where you could see the wall of the Vatican from our bedroom window. It was called Le Suite di Via Ottaviano (http://www.lesuitediviaottaviano.com/eng/ours%20suites.htm). It was a very small 'hotel', only five bedrooms but was absolutely gorgeous and the area was nice and quiet at night.

A good place to look for hotels is Trip Advisor. (www.tripadvisor.ie), which has loads of peer reviews. Another good site for hotels is venere (www.venere.com) I have used venere to book hotels several times now and have had no problems. They also have user reviews of hotels and both sites provide a function to map the hotel so you can see exactly where it is.

Most areas in Rome are fairly accessible thanks to the excellent metro. Though I would avoid the area around the main train station as I've heard it's no the nicest.

As to things to do, we did a lot of the usual like the Colosseum, St Peter's, The Vatican Museum and The Pantheon which are all wonderful. We also went to the Capitoline Museums, Palatine Hill and Castel Sant' Angelo.

If you decide to go to the Colosseum the best way to avoid the queues is to first go to the Palatine Hill, where there is rarely a queue, and get a joint ticket that cover there and the Colosseum. Once you have seen the Palatine Hill wander down to the Colosseum where you can skip the big long queue of people trying to buy a ticket and get in nearly straight away. Even if you don't want to see the Palatine Hill, you may consider it worthwhile to still get the joint ticket just to skip the long winding queue at the Colosseum.

For the Vatican Museum, there is nearly always a huge queue in the morning with people getting up a ridiculous times to starting queueing. You can see the queue snaking around all three walls of the Vatican! We left it until 12/1pm ish and by that stage there was barely any queue and walked straight up to the door. Once in the Vatican take time to look around the different areas of the Museum (plenty of Greek and Roman statues) before going to the Sistine chapel as it is sort of one way and hard to get back. And to be honest, I was kinda disappointed in the Sistine Chapel as it just seem small and was crowded.

There is nearly always a queue to get in to St Peter's Basilica but it moves exceptionally quickly and we only queued for about 15 minutes. Inside you can go into the Treasury. (It's over to the left as you go in) It does cost to get in but the cost includes an audio guide. It is well worth it and it is amazing to see the amount of wealth that the Church has! There are separate queues to go up the Dome (we didn't bother with that as it looked a very slow moving queue) and down to the Crypt. We did go down to the crypt.

The top of Castel Sant' Angelo gives amazing panoramic views over Rome which in itself make it worthwhile going to. But the Castle itself is also very good.

If you are looking for something rather different to see try the The Capuchin Crypt which is a decorated with old Capuchin Monk bones. Spooky but cool. (http://www3.sympatico.ca/tapholov/pages/bones.html)

Another good site for reference is http://wikitravel.org/en/Rome

Puffin

Rome rocks. I just love it.

The cheapest places to stay are around the train station. It’s meant to be rough (though I never saw anything bad happen). If you aren’t on an extreme budget, I would really recommend staying in Trastevere, my favourite rione (suburb/ region). Back in the day it was the old Jewish ghetto and is full of charming squares, little streets, great restaurants, easy walk to many of the ‘big sites’ etc. It’s also significantly more residential than a lot of tourist areas. It’s not the cheapest place in Rome, but it isn’t the most expensive.

In terms of what to do:
• Eat and drink- the food and wine are great. And feel free to ask questions about wines and food, the Italians love to talk about their food
• Flirt. It’s their national pastime so you’re not being sleazy, you’re being culturally sensitive
• Try to speak Italian. The Italians are fantastic in terms of trying to understand and lying and telling you your Italian is perfect. When I got stuck for a word I would laugh and say it in French- no one was ever offended and everyone seemed to think I was hilarious and charming
• Wander around the streets. Rome is a magical city with heads of random alleyways, odd foundations etc. It’s my favourite city in the world to just wander about in. Go to Trastevere even if you aren’t’ staying there
• Do see the ‘big sites’ they are worth it. I’m going to be really controversial and say if you are short on time and you don’t love art, skip the Vatican (though do go into St Peters). The Vatican is basically one huge gallery with religious art. There are heaps of amazing and famous pieces of art in the churches of Rome. Plus (and this is VERY controversial) I actually didn’t like the Sistine Chapel at all- I though it looked like a series of postage stamps. I think it’s only really great is you appreciate it in terms of it’s place in art history or if you have an excellent knowledge of the bible and so know who’s who in all the little pictures. Michelangelo himself considered his sculpture his best work- I reckon you’re better seeing that.
• My favourite ‘off the beaten track’ site is the Basilica San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains), it’s got a Michelangelo statue of Moses with horns (yes horns, apparently there was a mistranslation in the bible and for years they thought Moses had horns)

Above all- have fun!

Bloody*Mary

I was there in February and stayed in a great hotel called Capo D' Africa.
Can't tell you the cost as it was booked for me as a surprise but can't rave about the hotel enough which is unusual for Rome
Right beside the the Colosseum - even had a view of it from the balcony.

http://rome-hotels.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187791-d252244-Reviews-Capo_d_Africa_Hotel-Rome_Lazio.html

Hrududu

When we went a few years ago we stayed on the Aventine Hill.

http://rome-hotels.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187791-d529605-Reviews-Aventino-Rome_Lazio.html

It wasnt cheap but it is by far my favourite place I've stayed abroad. The place is filled with gorgeous houses with amazing surroundings. Our hotel was a 2 minute walk from a park that overlooks all of Rome. It is also a ten minute walk away from the Trastevere district which was probably my favourite part of Rome. I recommend going there at night for food. We ate in the centre a couple of nights and it was very touristy. But in Trastevere the restaurants were filled to the brim with Romans and the atmosphere was amazing.