I would strongly suggest that you make room reservations before arriving. Also, if I remember correctly you will be arriving at or near Ascension (I believe this is one of the Roman Catholic festivals?) Day. You will be there during what is typically considered the high season for tourists.
I have always stayed in or around the central part of the city well within walking distance of pretty much all of the sites except for “St. Paul’s outside the wall”, Ostia Antica", and a trip to the seashore near the airport. The last three stays were at the Alimandi, which is located near the Borgo district at the back side of the Vatican. Other locations I have stayed were on Via Firenze between Via Nacionale (near the Piazza della Repubblica) and Piazza Barberini and a pensione on the Lungotevere Giancolense. You will pay more but it is so much more convenient.
While public transportation is available (and previously discussed) why not solve the problem with walking and your knees by you and your husband renting Vespas or similar motor scooters! I don’t know what the rental requirements are but they would be much better than a car and offer great mobility in a densely packed city like Rome.
Well obviously. Anything else is out of the question. I am absolutely not arriving in Rome without a hotel or apartment reservation!
And no, I’m not renting a Vespa. A) I strongly dislike motorcycles and all of their cousins, from a safety aspect, B) I have no experience riding them except as the person sitting behind the driver, and C) I have heard bad things about the roads and about the other drivers in that area. So the idea of renting Vespas sounds a lot to me like the same suggestion as “hey, why don’t you spent your honeymoon in the emergency room?”
Does your mind conjur up the image of driving a car through Rome? Granted both of them are scary images but for someone who is limited in the amount of walking they can handle this seems like a better alternative than mass transit. There are only two subway lines covering the entire city and, while the buses are quite good within the heart of the center of the City, they are limited within the parks (Giancolo, Pincio and around the Borghese) and other more open areas.
Present day Centro Storico, Trastevere, etc., with their old ancient streets (alleys might be a better term) is not an easy place to move around if your walking is limited. I had a car on my first visit to Rome and I decided then to never have to drive through the heart of the city. My subsequent trips have all relied on walking for getting around except for the already mentioned locations (add the catacombs to the list though I actually walked back from them). Half of the enjoyment of touring Rome has always been walking down the narrow streets with a map in my pocket but not following it religiously.
My suggestion regarding the Vespa is that it offers the closest alternative to the walking experience for someone who only is there for 5 days!
Only if they want to be shipped back home in body bags… The traffic in Rome runs very smoothly as the goal of everyone driving appears to me to be that they never come to a complete stop. They’ll keep moving as they make way for others to enter the traffic flow, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch as almost everyone cooperates to make it happen, but I, with 25+ years’ experience driving things cannot imagine coming into Rome as a first-time visitor and driving. It would be like having a beginning banjo player conduct the symphony. All your other advice (save for using travelers checks - - most vendors don’t take them and banks charge a hefty fee to cash them) - - has been spot-on, but not the scooter renting. Sorry!
My 12 year-old son and I (there on his choir trip in November 2007) particularly enjoyed our gelato from Giolitti. It’s not too far from the Pantheon. Google can provide the address. As with most places that serve take away type food handled by humans, at Giolitti you pay a cashier near the front door. S/he gives you a ticket to take to the back where your order. That way the servers don’t dirty their hands. Nice system. Expect to pay more at most places that serve sandwiches and ice cream and other food you can take away if you want to sit down at one of their tables.
My son and I found that most Italians are reserved at first, but that in general they are very nice people who really want to like tourists, provided, of course, that the tourists have a bit of cultural sensitivity. We learned lots of basic words from phrase books and employed them with abandon. While our pronunciation was no doubt atrocious, we were able to initiate conversations in Italian. That wound up warming up the restaurateurs, clerks, hotel staff, etc., who would typically start speaking flawless English, and we had very pleasant exchanges. In the rare instances when people didn’t speak English, they understood Spanish, though they teased me about my using it.
We also really enjoyed a day-trip to Assisi. This was part of our group’s tour, so I don’t know how you’d make it work on-your-own (or even if you’d want to make it work), but it was a beautiful trip for sightseeing out and back and the town and church are just wonderful. Prices for souvenirs are much lower than in Rome as well.
Sounds like you have things well in hand both planning and advice-wise. Have fun!
Sorry - I missed your response before my last posting!
I don’t know exactly how limited your walking is, and I hope that I am intruding on your privacy, but is something like a wheelchair (motorized or not) an alternative? I am simply trying to point out that it Rome is not an easy City to traverse. It is quite hilly (the original Centro Storico is built on the famous seven hills - Palatine, Esquiline, etc). The near neighborhoods such as Trastevere, Testaccio, Borgo, Vatican, etc only add to the mix (plus the two previously mention parks - Pincio and Giancolo).
I don’t mean to sound discouraging but I also don’t want you arriving and saying “wow, this is not what I expected and I’m in deep doo-doo”!
The same system you describe above also is used at the coffee (expresso) and similar type shops. You are also quite correct regarding the comments about paying more if you want to sit down, and I would add that if you plan to sit at a table at a coffee/gelato/quick food place fitting the above description then just sit at an empty table and a waiter will generally appear to take your order. As pointed out, they will get upset if you order at the counter and then sit at a table as a different pricing system is in effect.
I agree with your other comments regarding Romans and attempts at using Italian phrases. I would again strongly suggest getting a “Menu Planner” book (they are small and will fit in your pocket)!
You’re imagining *way *over the top here. I’m not an invalid or anything. I have bad knees, meaning that I can’t walk from one side of Rome to the other or walk for 12 hours a day, etc. but I don’t need a wheelchair or anything. I’m a 37 year old woman, weigh 130lbs, and am in decent but not great shape. I can do a 25 mile bike ride without much trouble, for example. If I wear my z-coil shoes I can walk a lot longer than in standard shoes, but eventually my knees will hurt because of an alignment problem with my bones between my knees and ankles. Nobody needs to brainstorm ways for me to avoid walking. I’m not crippled. I’m simply saying that we’re a lot more likely to take a bus/taxi/etc to destinations that are several miles away rather than walking, because otherwise my knees will be in pain by the end of the trip. I only mentioned it because advice like “walk EVERYWHERE!!! :D” is going to be ignored, so I figured I’d nip it in the bud before everyone started suggesting it.
Yeah, I definitely need to come up with all the phrases I’ll need to make sure that I’m ordering vegetarian food. I did that before I went to Brazil several years ago and it was invaluable.
Wild pagan orgy followed by a visit to the vomitorium.
Feeding of Christians to the lions.
Laying upon a couch, shrieking for my favorite senator (also coincidentally my favorite horse), wearing underwear that looks suspiciously like crushed golden foil, while resting my head upon the pert bosoms of my underage sister.
Ah, Mississippienne, you give me the chance to be a pedantic ass once more. A vomitorium is not a comfort station for the satiated to become unsatiated before, during or after a drunken revelry. A vomitorium is an exit from a public building like the Coliseum - where the public is, if you would, vomited out of the building. It is a high volume exit.
Enough of this balderdash about inducing purging with a peacock feather.
I woke up from a dream and realized I needed to post in this thread!
I wore open sandals in Pompeii. A model that LLBean doesn’t sell anymore but which were pretty similar to these .
I found Pompeii to be just fine for good sturdy sandals. Some of the rougher cobblestones are a challenge for any type of shoe, but most of Pompeii seemed to be dusty-with-very-small-gravel pathways and plazas, grassy areas, stone floors and fairly smooth stone streets. Some minor stairs here and there.
If you decide you want to do an overnight in Pompei (the modern town) before going back to Rome, I can recommend the Hotel Diana Pompei as a comfortable, clean and affordable place to stay, very near one of the entrances to the excavation, and near the catherdral and some decent dining.
As for time in Pompeii, I recommend at least 4 hours in the excavation site itself. We could have used more time, but we arrived late due to a train delay and then stayed 'til they kicked us out at closing.
A quick plug for a Rome hotel that is surprisingly inexpensive (for Rome) and given its location only a few blocks from Termini, it is shockingly clean, safe, non-scary and well maintained.
The hotel itself is the top 3 (I think) floors of a 6 story building, and has an elevator and rooftop patio.
I have stayed there on two separate Rome trips, and heartily recommend it as a good, reasonably priced hotel close to Termini. Proximity to Termini was important for us because of the numerous buses, both subway lines and the train to Fiumicino Airport all go through there.
I would say, though, that I can’t recommend any of the restaurants in the neighborhood. Is “aggressively mediocre” a valid concept?
Also in Termini is a fabulous bookshop on the lower level, if you’re interested in acquiring books in Italian.
We’ve stayed at the Hotel Isa several times. It’s close enough to some of the sites to walk to, but far enough to not be smack dab in the center of everything.
Someone mentioned guidebooks a bit ago. What I do when going someplace new is to read a lot of different guidebooks and take notes. Some books will highlight some sites, but not mention others. True you’ll have a lot of overlap at the most popular sites, but there may be some hidden gems that Rick Steve’s guide will have that Lonely Planet won’t.
Well, what do you know? I just (as in, walked in the door one hour ago) finished my Italy trip with three days in Rome and stayed in Des Artistes! (We also stayed there for eight days back in 2007.) I’ll echo everything Motorgirl here has said. Des Artistes is also right around the corner from the Castro Pretorio station, which makes access to Termini even easier.
Also noteworthy: the Forum is no longer free! It is now packaged in with the Palantino-Coloseo ticket for 12 Euro (9 Euro + 3 Euro mandatory supplimental). Quite a bummer to discover…
