Five survival tips for Rome
Rome is amazing, it’s stacked with history and being Italy’s capital is full of culture, sunshine and delicious food! But it’s a still a busy, working city so here are the lessons I learned which will help you to enjoy your trip:
- Prepare to walk everywhere
Don’t be persuaded to buy a pass for public transport. The Metro is good and you’ll use it a bit no doubt, but it doesn’t cover the whole city, and the traffic is horrendous so taxis or buses are out. There’s something to admire on most streets so just walk to wherever you’re going, it won’t take much longer and it’s so worth it when you uncover hidden gems. So walk, and make sure you have good shoes for it!
- Invest in a good map and guidebook
You will get lost in Rome. In fact, I think we spent more time lost than not! But wandering around the cobbled streets and stumbling across random stuff is part of the fun, so don’t spend the whole time with your head buried in a map, but definitely get one – you’ll need it. We also took a Lonely Planet guidebook, which was really great. Again you don’t want to be a bore with your head in a book the whole time, sometimes it’s nice to admire an old ruin or monument and have no idea what it is! But likewise some things are worth finding out about, so I’d definitely recommend having one handy.
- Don’t be tricked into buying a tour to “skip the queues”
You’ll find swarms of people trying to persuade you to sign up for their tours outside the major attractions like the Colosseum, and they’ll try to sell it to you on the basis of skipping the queues. But most of these attractions are either free or dead cheap, and we didn’t queue for longer than 15 mins for anything. Of course if you want to do a tour I’m sure they’re great, but if you’re only doing it to skip the queue, make sure you check out the queue situation first as we were glad we didn’t pay the extra.
- Book ahead online for the Vatican
Contrary to my last point… the queues outside the Vatican are nuts! But if you book your tour ahead online (it’s worth the money – see my post on the Vatican) you can just stroll in.
Aside from making you feel very smug, it saves you so much time.
Here’s the link: mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html
- Research restaurants and bars
As with any major city, you can end up paying loads for a pretty average meal and forking out a fortune for half a pint if you’re not careful. As a general rule, places overlooking the main sights are gonna be a rip off, so stick to the side streets. But also, do some reseach on where you can get a good bargain before you go – it’ll save you the headache of trying to find somewhere decent as well saving those crucial pennies.
