Long Weekend in Rome

[Smiler.]

Me & the mrs are planning on taking my mum to Rome at the end of March (75th birthday & all clear following an operation).

Any recommendations for hotels/sights do's/dont's.

Thanks in advance

[ewenm]

Assuming she can walk around, stay central and most sights are in walking distance, especially with plenty of cafe stops.

[Steven Quas]

Don't take a horse and carriage ride, or at least divide their starting price by 5. For a 40 minute tour, we were asked for €200! He got a little upset when I said I wasn't trying to buy his horse. Some frinds paid €50 for a 1 hour trip which sounds more sensible.

Steven Quas
Hamburg

[MentalSarcasm]

All the usual sights are fairly central and easy to get around by foot. Get a guide book with a good map and you'll be fine. Vatican City is further away than you'd think so take a taxi there if you want to see it (or go by the Metro but keep a VERY close eye on your valuables).

Italian pizza is the best, and make sure you try ice cream as well while you're there, regardless of the weather.

You can also take a boat tour down the Tiber. Can't remember the name of the one we went on but it was pretty good.

There are cafes everywhere so you can stroll around, have a sit down and a drink, stroll a bit further, have a bit of lunch, wander off somewhere else etc etc etc.

[magpies]

we found a good way to start and get bearings was to use 'City Sightseeing Rome' 18Euro bus ticket usefull for 2 days and you hop on / hop off. see their web site for map and details.

[anonymous-user]

We stayed at the Art Hotel. Nice, small, boutiquey. Pickpockets roam freely around the Trevi Fountain. Coliseum, the main Roman ruins street (can't recall the name), and the Vatican are the big three sights.

[anonymous-user]

Whilst most locations are walk-able you can cover some serious mileage on foot, just getting round them if not between them, I seem to remember the Vatican (St Peters, the Vatican Museum & Sistine Chapel) took virtually a whole day. The Colosseum was a good few hours too.

We went about 5 years ago and some of the established tourist locations had headphone guides which were excellent if slightly antisocial (which might be ideal for you or the MiL)

We found proper Italian Restaurants opened quite late (8pm ish) so after a days sightseeing we were absolutely starving with still hours to go till dinner, maybe have an afternoon tea each day or eat earlier in your hotel if available.

We got a little guide (insideout popup guide) which had suggested itineraries and large & small scale fold out maps and directorys etc, which was invaluable and very helpful and only about a £5.

If you were going for any longer, i'd suggest combining it with a train trip to Venice, I think we did 4 days Rome and 2 Venice which seemed about right.

Greg66 said:

We stayed at the Art Hotel. Nice, small, boutiquey. Pickpockets roam freely around the Trevi Fountain. Coliseum, the main Roman ruins street (can't recall the name), and the Vatican are the big three sights.

This is something Rome does in abundance (quirky & small). We stayed in the Franklin Hotel which was based around Music, each room had a Bang & Olufsen stereo with a library of music and themed rooms.

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 21st February 12:58

[JonyTVR]

I personaly WOULDN'T recommend the tours you can get round the collosseam (sp) as we did it to jump the long que, but we waited a while for them to get enough people and it just seems to never end, as 4 fit young lads even we were very drained by the end of it with the heat and standing listening to what was actually a load of rubbish.