If you follow me Instagram or have read my latest post, then you’ll know that i’ve recently travelled to the beautiful city of Rome with one of bestest gal pals! As promised, i’ve put together a Rome travel guide to share with you some of the beautiful sights that we got to see and also some of the wonderful places we found ourselves sampling the finest of Italian cuisine.
Take a look at my Rome travel guide and what i’d recommend doing whilst visiting!
Similarly to my Amsterdam guide I want to kick off this blog post by going into the details of booking, hotel, location etc because I often find it so hard to know which areas are best to stay when visiting a place for the first time, or how the local transport system works! Luckily Rome wasn’t too dissimilar to the norm that us brits are used to but I still want to give you a few pointers.
For booking we booked through Expedia and we managed to get an amazing deal with both flights and hotel coming to around £180 each for 3 nights/4 days flying from Manchester. Whilst in Rome we stayed at the Raeli Hotel Luce, which for it’s location is a fab European hotel with everything you’d need especially if you’re looking for somewhere to essentially get your head down for a good sleep and fill up on breakfast in the morning before heading out for a day of exploring. One thing I will say is that this hotel isn’t up to everyone standards but I honestly couldn’t complain, each to their own and all that, but the main selling point of this hotel it is location. Located literally a street away from Rome’s Termini station, its so easy to get a bus transfer to and from the airport (costing roughly €6 each way) but also means you can hop on the Metro (costing €1.50 for 100 minutes) and get to anywhere you want to get to. It’s also walking distance from a lot of the sights, with the Colosseum being just a 10 minute walk away.
The Sights
Onto probably the most exciting part of this blog post.. the places we visited! As we were only there for a short space of time we proper crammed in as much as we could but there are so many more places I wanted to visit! Starting off with probably the most obvious of places to visit and that is of course the Colosseum. As we knew we wanted to get as much out of few days there, we decided to book a tour that not only included the Colosseum but also the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. We booked this through TripAdvisor and opted for the 10am slot, meaning we’d finish to tour around lunchtime so we could then grab a bite to eat.
The tour itself was amazing. Beyond any expectations in fact! For the cost price of just under £50 each you honestly cannot go wrong! When booking you select your preferred language to ensure you’re given the best possible experience. The meeting point of the tour is easy to locate and once directed to your guide, you’re given a listening device and earphones in order to hear your guide as you’re touring around. I won’t go into the tour too much as I don’t want to spoil it, but within the three hours you are given access to the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill all of which you skip the horrendous queues for and your tour guide will guide you around the main parts of each of these locations, giving the most interesting of facts that I don’t think you’d learn from the normal Colosseum tours. If you prebook one thing, this is that one thing i’d recommend!
Moving onto a few other sights that you should visit during any visit to Rome, however these you don’t have to pay/book for (unless you want to). On our last day we took a trip to see Vatican City of which was even more stunning in real life. We decided to not queue to visit the museum as we were on a somewhat strict time schedule and the queues were hella long, but i’m pretty sure entry is free on certain days of the month so if you’re wanting to visit inside and not pay make sure to google which days are free.
As well as the Vatican, there are a few other free sights that we saw purely from just strolling around the Italian streets as a fair few sights are kind of close to each other as i’m sure you’ll find if you’re roaming around Rome (pardon the pun)! A couple more typical sights that everyone stops off by are of course the Trevi Fountain which was beyond stunning, and also the Spanish Steps which are also so unique and beautiful. If/when visiting these, just bear in mind that they are always busy and to make sure to respect the landmarks as there are police/security around who will essentially kick off if you overstep the mark.
Places with a View
Moving onto a couple of locations that we stumbled upon of which had literally the most stunning views that I couldn’t not share as a separate section of this post. Now I can’t take all the credit for these as my friend actually found out about both of these locations and i’m beyond thankful she did because they are honestly not to be missed. One location that was probably my favourite of the trip was the rooftop bar at the Hotel Atlante Star which has the most incredible views over looking the Vatican City, and was also an amazing location to catch the absolutely sunset as you’ll see from the photos above. If like me you love a good sunset, then this is somewhere you need to add onto your ‘to visit’ list.
Another amazing view point that we found on our last day was located just by the Giuseppe Garibaldi Monument, which you have to kind of hike up to and although I wouldn’t recommend doing it in almost 40 degree heat like we did, the hike is well worth it for the absolutely magical view overlooking the whole of Rome! As this is located in the direction of the Vatican City, i’d recommend potentially tying the two together as you can walk along the beautiful river and also see some pretty Italian streets along the way!
Where to Eat
Finally onto the best part… THE FOOD! If i’m honest there are so so many restaurants in Rome that you’ll no doubt just stumble upon places where the menus sound good and eat there, but I still wanted to give you guys a few recommendations. If there is one place you have to go, it is Oppio Caffe or its neighbour La Big Ristorante as both have the stunning views of the Colosseum right in front of them!
A couple of other places, both more towards the Vatican City that i’d recommend for the tastiest and traditional Italian food are: Borgo 36 which had not only the friendliest staff but also the most tasty pasta dishes! We both opted for pasta on this evening as we hadn’t had any by this point and the portion sizes were just perfect for how hungry we were! The other place i’d recommend going is Miraggio Trastevere which we stumbled upon whilst exploring the Vatican city on our last day, located just off from the river and they served the biggest pizza’s I think i’ve ever seen! So big that we shared one for lunch! You honestly won’t be disappointed if you do dine at either of these places, but as mentioned there are SO many traditional Italian restaurants!
So that is my travel guide to Rome! There is so much to do and see in Rome, and there is so much more i’d wanted to share but out of everything we did what i’ve shared is everything i’d recommend!
Have you visited Rome recently?
