After spending a few days in my Spanish hometown, we flew from Santander to Rome, via Madrid. We stayed at a hotel that was called Hotel Fiamma, which appears to now be called Smooth Hotel Rome Repubblica. It is very near to Roma Termini, the main railway station in Rome, and within walking distance of many of the classic Rome sight-seeing stops. We stayed there for two nights, and it cost us each around $80. Since we got there in the evening, we asked the hotel desk for a recommendation of a nearby Italian restaurant, and ate far more pasta than we should have before heading back to the hotel to relax for the night.
While we tried to make sure we saw a mixture of the “have-to-sees” and some of the more “off-the-beaten-path” attractions, we realized that if this trip may be the only time we were ever in these cities, we should probably see the traditional sights. I’ve found that the easiest way to see as much as possible is to use the City Sightseeing Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tours. I like to take a full loop of the tour on the bus to see everything and hear what the audio tour says, and then to go back around and get off at the places that I was more interested in. It cost us each $30 for the full day ticket, which is very worth it in my opinion. The bus station that the tour left from was also within walking distance of the hotel, so off we went.
The full list of where the tour goes can be seen on the website, but it got us to popular sites such as the Coliseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, among many others. We bought entry tickets to the Coliseum ahead of time (about $26 each), which gave us unlimited time to explore and take pictures.
We knew that we wanted to get off at the Vatican so we could go to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica (our bird’s eye view of the Vatican and Rome for $7), so we planned ahead when we left for the day since there is a dress code in the Vatican – for women, shoulders are supposed to be covered and pants/skirts/dresses must fall below the knees. For us, that meant we threw a sweatshirt in our bags to be able to put on when needed, and just made sure we wore long pants for the day. If I’m remembering correctly, we weren’t originally planning on getting tickets to the Vatican museums, but hadn’t realized that was what was needed to see the Sistine Chapel. The day we went, the lines were verylong, and after debating between ourselves for a while, we ultimately ended up buying tickets through a tour group that was selling them around the main city square. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what the price was beyond us both thinking that it was expensive, but justifying it by saying it was going to be our only chance. There are, however, many different tours that are available to book online ahead of time, which is probably the better option.
For as much as I keep mentioning wanting to do the really touristy things because it might be our only chance, fate decided to play with us. We stopped by the Trevi Fountain (because who after watching the Lizzie MacGuire movie didn’twant to throw a coin into the fountain?), only to find that it was under construction for restoration, drained of water, and we were unable to make our wishes.
We only had one full day in Rome, but easily felt like we saw everything we really wanted to see. Neither one of us is terribly interested in Roman history, so while what we got through the audio guide on the bus was interesting, we didn’t feel the need to take the time and spend the money to go through other museums around the city.
Total cost for Rome (including transportation there, but not food/taxis/souvenirs/etc, and notincluding the Vatican tour): ~$300
