Rome itinerary

sinlessgunner

Hello all,

Travelling to Rome on the 23rd for 5 nights. Staying in self catering accomodation (rentalinrome.com by far the best value for money in Rome). We are staying in Trastavere, just beside the Basilica di Santa Maria. I need some help though because the amount of information on the web is both confusing and overwhelming. I would like some ideas for places to visit and some hints and tips for visiting Rome.

We are planning to walk everywhere within reason. We don't want to be rushing everywhere or queueing for hours for sights that aren't worth it. I definitely want to see the Vatican, after that I'm not too bothered really. What tours would people recommend be prebooked? Should I just buy tickets on site? Where and when are the best places to visit? Any less well known sites that are worth a look?

Any help/advice or just a few hints and tips would be really appreciated. Many thanks

bittihuduga

i was there in rome last month.

vatican city - best to visit on tuesday/thursday around 12noon or later to avoid bigggg queues.

if you are interested, you can take guided tours.
but we avoided them everywhere in rome.
just took ricksteves' free audio guide downloaded from internet (and put it onto your ipod)
there are free rome tours offered by freerometours company. they were very good too.

visited most of the places in my 5day stay.
if you are sure about your iterinary, then you can book the entry online and hence avoid the queues everywhere.
dont forget to make the appointment at the gallery(Villa Borghese ).

important sites(just a small list) - vatican, colosseum, spanish steps,Piazza del Popolo,Villa Borghese,trevis fountain, pantheon and plenty other churches.

outside rome - we went to tivoli for the old villas.(they are closed on mondays). naples/pompei is worth a visit but it may be too far for a day visit.
dont forget to sip the small coffee while standing for around 1.50euros and the different varieties of ice-cream.

hope this helps. enjoy rome.....

ncmc

I think you can see most of the sites without pre booking or getting a guide. The two sites with the longest wait are the Vatican museum and the Colliseum. A tip is to buy your Colliseum tix at the Pallantine Hill ticket box rather than the main ticket box. We actually decided to book a tour for the Colliseum and I'm glad we did, ok there is an extra cots involved (it is a few years since we were there so not sure of up to date prices). We felt it was well worth the money as it got you past the queues and included a tour around the Forum which was amazing. The guide was really good and brought the place alive with his stories. I felt of we hadn't had a guide we would have just been wandering around looking at nameless ruins. There are loads of tours being sold outside the Colliseum, you don't need to pre book.

You can also get a guided tour for the Vatican museum, but we didn't bother with that, we just got there about 15 mins before opening and didn't wait long in line. tbh, bar the Cistine Chapel (which is AMAZING) I wasn't that pushed on the Vatican Museum, kind of disgusting how much wealth the catholic has! We did enjoy the dome of St Peter's however, you get amazing views over the city. However this is not for the claustrophibic or unfit as you have to climb a lot of narrow stairs.

I wouldn't try and cram too much into your 5 days, one of the nicest things in Rome is just wandering around and taking in the magnificant sights around every corner, or even sitting eating gelato on the Spanish Steps looking at all the beautiful people, ah heavan . My favourite places in Rome were the Spanish Steps, the Colliseum, the Parthanon and the Piazza Navona (lovely restaurants here btw) Enjoy your trip!

Pythia

Buy all the tickets you can online. We bought tickets to the Vatican online and skipped the whole queue. We also went on a guided tour of Ancient Rome and were able to skip all the queues in the places we visited. I would advise prebooking a tour to be sure you are getting a good tour guide (our Italian guide had amazing English!).

Since you are there for so long you probably have time to visit somewhere like Tivoli or Pompeii.