A Quick Travel Guide To Rome
Author: Chris Snow
Rome is an enchanting place that has been attracting tourists for
its rich cultural heritage and brilliant historic monuments. In
the ratings of Condé Nast Traveler's 2004 Reader's Choice
Awards, Rome grabbed the coveted second spot on the list of top
ten European cities.
Some quick helpful facts about traveling to the
city. You need to have a valid passport to enter Italy though you
do not need a visa if the duration of the stay is less than 90
days. However, there is an exception to this rule for some
specific countries. Since the summers are hot and dry, you should
visit Rome between October and March. Book yourself at a hotel
that is close to the historic district. The ideal place would be
Hotel de Russie, situated between the Piazza del Popolo and the
Spanish Steps that are worth seeing.
Plan your itinerary well in advance, especially the places you
definitely want to visit. The ideal mode of discovering Rome's
heritage is on foot, as it gives you the flexibility of covering
the locations at your own speed. The other option to save cost is
to use the Tram Bus system that links the entire city and also
the nearby areas. And if you are looking at convenience, you can
always opt for a private tour. Make sure you have taken a pair of
comfortable shoes. Carry minimum weight while going around the
city. The city has many eating joints around the tourist
attractions so you can appease your hunger pangs any time you
want.
The city is full of tourist attractions and it is a real tough
task to decide which of them are a must see. Your local
sightseeing plan for a given day could look like this. Start with
the Coliseum that is a popular tourist attraction. Since the
visiting hours change through the year, make sure that you
confirm the timings beforehand. To make this awesome experience
more realistic, they have an hourly conducted tour by guides in
the guise of gladiators. The next important stop, the Roman Forum
or Foro Romano, is just across the street. The Roman Forum, the
heart of the Roman Empire, is standing tall even after 2000
years! You would be fascinated by the involutions of the Roman
architecture. There is no entry fee here and you can also avail
the facility of guided tours.
The next stop, The Pantheon or 'The Temple to all Gods', was
built around 125 AD and is one of the best-preserved buildings in
Rome. Built by Emperor Hadrian, many famous personalities like
Vittorio Emmanuel II and Umberto I (the kings of Italy) and the
one and only Raphael are buried here. There is a nine meter
opening in the concrete dome which the only source of light in
this monument. It takes you back in time to the glorious days of
the Roman Empire and you cannot stop imagining being a part of
the Romans, as it existed then. You would get goose bumps
dreaming of the kind of clothes they would have worn, their
language, gestures etc. You can have this extraordinary
experience through the year except Christmas when the Pantheon is
closed.
By the end of the day, there is just one more place to see that
cannot be missed. You can easily spend three hours visiting The
Vatican and its collection of artifacts that chronicle the
Catholic Church's history. If you have time, you should let
Michelangelo's Pieta, which is housed in St Peter's Basilica,
amaze you. The Vatican museum has even more splendid antiques,
including the Egyptian mummies. You should not miss Sistine
Chapel that has The Bible painted on the ceiling by the legendary
Michelangelo himself.
Well, whatever you chose to do, get to befriend your hotel
concierge first since he can be the best source of updated
information. About the author: For more
travel and vacation tips and guides visit http://www.comprehensive-travel.com
Rome Bed and breakfasts, because accommodation in Rome does
not only mean hotels
Author: Paola Lo Russo
Just like many other invasions in Italian history, also the bed
and breakfast one came from the north. The tourism workers was
not used at all to lodge its guests in something different from
an hotel or an apartment, because Rome had always been the
destination of particularly wealthy tourists.
There was no need to offer them only the
possibility to have breakfast in the morning in a place similar
to a real house, just to save up some money. Now the world of
tourism has totally changed. New kinds of travellers need just a
place to sleep at night in a comfortable environment, preferring
to save money or to spend it even more, for any other reason but
an hotel room: to make a guided tour of Rome's monuments and
museums, to shop in the fashion boutique's area surrounding the
Spanish Steps, to book a comfortable transfer from the airport,
to enjoy the night life of the Eternal city and so on. Luckily
enough, people of Rome finally got it so that in the last fifteen
years they started to open bed & breakfasts all over the city and
often in the same beautiful locations of the best an more luxury
hotels of Rome. Most of them were owners of flats and small
charming buildings in the city centre and they took the risk to
start this business from scratch. But very soon they realized
that these kind of accommodations would suit Rome's tourists just
as well as everywhere else in the world where they were already
so popular. An even more: a total boom of reservations was
registered! If you'll ever have the chance to lodge in one of
Rome's b & b you will easily understand why the first ones who
lodged there liked it so much: because those rooms had actually
been someone's bedrooms, bathroom and dining room till yesterday,
they had been lived for real, they had been a real house for
entire generations: from children to grandparents; in a word,
they had been alive. A lot of travellers seem to like this
atmosphere much more than the aseptic one of a very refined
hotel. But there's more. If you've already booked a room in some
bed & breakfast or some guest house for your holidays in Rome,
you will be positively impressed by the people who usually run
these places. Most of them still live there and they are not in a
rush as some hotels' receptionists: usually they are very
friendly people who enjoy to have a little chat with you while
they're arranging your breakfast in the morning. Do you want some
tips about where are the best locations to book a Bed & Breakfast
in Rome? Trastevere and Rione Monti, with their picturesque old
building, all restored in the inside, are tremendous spots to
look for this particular kind of accommodation. One last tip: if
you're trying to book online your accommodation in Rome, just
beware of hidden costs and always ask for real bed & breakfasts
or guest houses: they're so requested right now that some tiny
hotels pretend to be one of them! About the author: Paola Lo
Russo is a true expert of travel to Italy. If you want to know
more about Hotels in Rome
and about
Rome Bed & breakfastson his online resource at
http://www.romaclick.com
How to do Rome in 48 hours
Author: Katy Hylsop
You've just arrived in Rome with a couple of days to kill. How is
it possible to see all there is to see in such a short time? This
is the guide to get the most out of Rome in the shortest amount
of time.
19:00 Hopefully check in at the hotel has been
fairly straightforward so now it is to venture out in search of a
good meal. A meal in the old Trastevere part of the city has
several benefits. Firstly there is a multitude of touristy type
sidewalk restaurants and pizzerias to choose from and secondly
they are within gentle strolling distance of several significant
landmarks, including the well preserved Pantheon.
Rome is just as appealing by night as by day, with the heat of a
Roman summer, night time walks may just save a few hours of
excessive sweating during the day. Any of the little back streets
between the Pantheon and the Spanish steps are perfectly placed
to allow a generous meal of pasta and a good carafe of wine to be
walked off quite easily.
21:00 Make your way to the Spanish steps to sit and hang out
with the locals, while the view from the top of the steps in
front of the church Trinita dei Monti offers a great view out
over the city. Wander through to the Trevi Fountain and buy
dessert in the form of a gelato and try your luck with the
change. Throw one coin over your shoulder to come back, two coins
to come back and get kissed or three coins to come back and be
married.
22:00 Keep on walking through the streets until you reach Piazza
Venezia, so named because of the Palazzo overlooking the piazza
that resembles the Doges Palace in Venice. The balcony on the
second floor may look familiar, it was the podium from which the
dictator 'il duce' Mussolini delivered his fascist speeches. The
other landmark overlooking the piazza is the unmistakable
monument to Vittorio Emanuele II.
This has earned several nicknames over the years including the
Wedding Cake and the Typewriter. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier
lies here under armed guard along with the eternal flame. If the
monument is open there is a fantastic view over the Rome
rooftops, a glimpse into the Roman Forum and the Colosseum behind
it. This is closed at dusk but many of the ruins are lit up at
night.
23:00. If the night air has revived you there is the option of
checking out the local night life as there are plenty of bars and
clubs open around the central city area. Also there are some in
other piazzas such as Piazza Navona and Campo dei Fiori that stay
open until the early hours. Otherwise it's back to the hotel to
get ready for tomorrow.
08:00 It pays to start early, particularly in the summer to beat
the crowds and the temperatures but luckily the city is not too
spread out to get from one sight to the next. The metro system is
basic to use to say the least, there are only two metro lines
that criss-cross the city and the buses are clearly marked with
destinations. Termini is the central bus and metro terminal.
Tickets must be bought before boarding and validated in the
yellow machines, starting from ?1 for one journey.
No visit to Rome is complete without a trip to the Vatican. San
Pietro is on the western side of the river Tiber with the dome of
St Peter's visible from most parts of the city. The Vatican
museum rooms are open from 8.45 in the morning until 4pm, with
the last entry just before 3.30pm, during the busy summer months.
It is open until 1pm on Saturdays and low season, while it is
closed on Sundays and religious observances. You need plenty of
time to walk through the 7km of museum rooms to reach the Sistine
chapel where you can admire the detail and wonder at the creation
on the ceiling by Michelangelo. It pays to have some sort of
description of the frescoes handy to explain what you are looking
at. The Pope gives his public address on Wednesday mornings at
11am.
13:00 If you are still hungry for more there is the vast
interior of the Basilica itself, the crypt below and the view
from the dome above down into the square. Now is probably a good
time to find some lunch before taking on the Colosseum and the
Roman Forum. Take plenty of water with you in the summer months
as wily vendors will sell small bottles at exorbitant prices.
Along lunch also gets you out of the hottest part of the day.
15:00 Entry tickets to the Colosseum can be bought at the gate
but if the line is too long you can go to the ticket window at
the base of the Palatine hill and buy them there. The line here
is generally much shorter as not many tourists go up the hill.
The remains of the Emperors palace stands at the top overlooking
the forum and quite stretegically down on the Temple of the
Vestal Virgins. This hill is also said to be where Romulus
founded Rome.
Beside the Colosseum stands the Arch of Constantine, which was
an exercise in recycling of old monuments by Emperor Constantine
to reward himself for beating Maxentius. The Colosseum has been
damaged over the last 1800 years by earthquakes, invaders and
marble merchants but the recent restoration projects has seen
parts of it restored to give a good idea of its original
state.
16:00 The Via Sacre leads from the Colosseum up into the Foro
Romano, the centre of the ancient Roman trading world. The ruins
include the original forum, Julius Caesar's funeral pyre, his
Senate building, the Temple of the Vestal Virgins and the arch of
Septimus Severus. The forum was buried over several hundreds of
years of flooding, each layer has been stripped back to reveal
another Roman era, and in some cases where two eras have merged,
as in the case of the Temple of Antonino and Faustina. The door
that stands halfway up the exposed wall shows where the ground
level was during the 8th Century when the 2nd Century temple was
converted to church.
There are plenty of tour guides available as history students
and licensed guides offer their services with tours of the forum
and the coliseum. The stories they tell really help the ruins to
come alive. Across the road is Trajan's Forum with the very
conspicuous Trajan's column. This marks the edge of ancient Rome
and the continuation of the modern city. Unfortunately most of
ancient Rome lies beneath the Via dei Fiori Imperiali, the road
built by Mussolini to parade his troops up and down before going
off to battle.
17:00 The rest of the day can be spent either indulging in some
people watching at any of the cafes in Piazza Navona and admiring
the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi sculptured by Bernini, or relaxing
in the shade in the park at the 17thC Villa Borghese. Then its
back to those clubs you missed last night.
08:00 This really depends on when you decide to leave. An early
evening departure may enable you to take in one of three options
provided you start early. The baths of Caracalla is a 10 hectare
space that once held 1600 people there to take advantage of the
bathing, shops, libraries, gardens and public entertainment.
These open at 9am closing 1 hour before sunset and 2pm on a
Monday. You would need around 3-4 hours including travel time to
view these.
The other option is to visit one of the vast catacombs that are
buried beneath the city. These are miles and miles of tunnels,
burial vaults and Churches dug by the early Christians to escape
persecution by the Romans. The burial vaults are countless metres
tall and the tunnels run down over several levels. The resulting
rabbit warren requires a guide to take you through and out again
safely. You can choose from the ones on the Via Appia Antica,
which are the largest, or the Catacombs of San Callisto which are
next door to the Catacombs of San Sebastiano. They open at 8.30am
closing at noon, reopening in the afternoon from 2.30pm until
5pm. Again you would need 3-4 hours to take one site in.
10:00 The third and final choice is to leave the whole touristy
thing out and indulge in some authentic food experiences. The
food markets north of the Vatican are held just off Viale dele
Millizie and the ones in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele near Termini
offer a selection of fresh and locally made produce.
There you have it, all the major attractions of Rome achievable
in just 2 days. The choice now is, do I really want to leave just
yet?
About the author: Katy Hyslop has spent the past 6 years
travelling, tour guiding and generally hanging around the
European tourism industry. She is now based in Italy and in
charge of keeping the crew under control at Plus. If you want to
know more on what to see or where to stay in Rome click here.
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