What is it really like Exploring Rome? The Reality

Introduction: Rome, the eternal city, is a treasure trove of history, art, and culture.  Staying in a hotel in the heart of the city on a traditional city break can be exhilarating, but the way in which we travel  offers a vastly different experience as we experience Rome proper, rather than just the edited highlights.

In this blog post, I will share our experience of staying in Flaminio on the outskirts of the city, taking the train in with ordinary residents and commuters from Due Ponti, and exploring the iconic landmarks of Rome in a span of four days (including 1, very necessary, day off!).

Day 1: A Journey through Ancient Rome: Our adventure began with a train ride from Due Ponti, a serviceable ‘updated’ station (1 day the turnstiles weren’t working; another day it was the ticket machine), sitting alongside the no longer used old station; although this is likely due to laziness I did love seeing the old station with the blocked off underpass 😊

Arriving in Rome, we dived headfirst into its ancient history and it’s most iconic sights, ‘The Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill’ which still stand as monumental reminders of the city’s glorious past. Immersing ourselves in the awe-inspiring ruins, we (Calv in particular) marvelled at the ingenuity of the ancient Romans;  the Colosseum delivered everything promised, the Roman Forum was never ending – with sight after sight and the Constantine Arch stood guard over everything. 

However, we were constantly harangued by those trying to sell overpriced tour tickets – telling us the official queue (which wasn’t well managed) was 4 hours… (it was about 1 hour – quite long enough!)  The ticket gets you entrance to all 3 attractions – we would have spent the extra 6Euros to visit ‘the underground’ of the Colosseum, but unfortunately it was sold out for the day ☹

Throughout Rome, whatever faults there may be, there is an abundance of water fountains available to fill your bottles. 

From the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill we could see a huge monument which we didn’t discover until our 3^rd day of exploring – it was well worth it 😊

These 3 attractions are in a very compact area, and we were therefore able to use the same metro to head home as we arrived at (there are not a huge number of stations to choose from unfortunately..)

Day 2: The Vatican City: On the second day, we set our sights on Vatican City, a city state within Rome.  Once again, not well signposted from the minimal metro network, but we managed to find our way in the end. 

There was a long queue for the Vatican museums (buying a ticket is the only way to see the Sistine Chapel unfortunately – as I wasn’t overly bothered about the museums we decided to give this a miss (which doesn’t stop the ticket sellers from haranguing you every step you walk)) 

Instead we headed straight for St Peter’s Square (again minimal signage to help you to negotiate the city and find the main sights).  But once there we loved the grandeur of St. Peter’s Square, where the faithful gather in the shadow of the magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica. On this day they were preparing for a large gathering to be held in a couple of days.

The square itself is beautiful including a wonderful fountain (which provided a very welcome shower of spray) and a statue honouring all refugees over time.  There is also a post office, which, had I realised or thought about it, I would have gone into to post a couple of postcards and perhaps had my passport stamped.  But I didn’t ☹

Returning to visit the basilica later in the day, the opulent interior almost left us speechless.  Note: the queues look longer than they actually are and are mainly to get through the airport type security that you will experience throughout Rome.  Entrance to the Basilica is free and I would absolutely recommend it.

After lunch we headed to the Castel Sant’Angelo which stood as a testament to Rome’s layered history.  Well worth the 12Euros entry fee, there is far more to this castle than you might first think.  We arrived at a quiet point and didn’t have much of a queue.  It was a lovely surprise wandering around discovering the delights of this attraction.  There is a café/restaurant on a terrace near the top level which might be worth a visit for lunch.

Having returned to visit St Peter’s Basilica we were delighted to spot a couple of Swiss Guard in their iconic uniforms (never too happy to have their photos taken of course!)

We then, accidentally, exited the square and headed in the wrong direction (we turned right…) which resulted in us walking the entire circumference of the Vatican City’s towering walls in the course of the day, which is really not a particularly pleasant way to complete your visit!!  And it was, of course, my fault….

Day 3: A Day of Rest: After two days of intense exploration, we decided to take a well-deserved break. It was a day of relaxation, basically doing a spot of washing and heading to the swimming pool to cool off 😊

Day 4: The Heart of Rome: On our final day, we ventured into the historic heart of Rome, to visit the last few sights on our list – the Spanish Steps, The Trevi Fountain and The Pantheon.

I had hoped to also visit the Piazza Navona, but a wrong turn early in the day (☹) and lots of walking around the busy streets meant that we didn’t make it.  We did however discover some other sights that weren’t on our list – the Vittorio Emanuelle II monument (including the tomb of the unknown warrior) and the Teatro  Marcello.

First stop was the Spanish Steps, accessed from the Spagna Metro station.  The fountain at the bottom of the steps was quite impressive (and you could refill your water bottle here), but the steps themselves were largely obscured by the hordes of people on them.  We did, of course, walk up, and down and then headed through the shopping district (where I did buy a new bikini…) in search of the Trevi Fountain.

Having initially walked the wrong way and unintentionally visited Piazzale Flaminio, we eventually found the Trevi fountain.  Again a very impressive sight, but heaving with tourists.  It is huge!  I chose not to throw any coins in….

Last up was the Pantheon, but on the way we found the Vittorio Emanuelle monument, which was very impressive, and from which you can look over the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. From there we spotted what looked like a mini colosseum, but was in fact the Teatro Marcello, an ancient open-air theatre that was completed in 13BC – very impressive 😊

When we eventually found the Pantheon there was a short queue to visit.  It was much smaller than I expected, but no less impressive for that.  Definitely worth the long walk to find it!

Conclusion: Staying on the outskirts of Rome and commuting in from Due Ponti allowed us to experience a different view of Rome than most who visit will see.  This means that we don’t see the ‘fully sanitised’ version of the city, but rather the full reality, including walking through the less salubrious districts and ‘enjoying’ the real experience of commuting into the city (the trains and stations are very dated).

We very much enjoyed our time in Rome and saw all the sights that we wanted to.  We’re glad that we went but we wouldn’t return (hence why I didn’t throw any coins into the fountain!)