Wandering Rome for a Week

The Eternal City

Rome is one of the longest standing and most historic cities in the entire world. How does one start telling people about Rome? This is a city that has existed for roughly 28 centuries, that was named the Eternal City in the 1st century BC, and has been eulogized by writers, poets, and musicians throughout the ages. I’m going to leave you to do your own internet searches on the glories of Rome as it is impossible to sum up in a travel blog post. Instead, as in our post on Athens, I’ll recap our wandering Rome for a week to try to give you an idea of some of the things you can see and do in this amazing city.

Side Note: Rome takes pride in their city and it was one of the cleanest and well manicured large, old cities we’ve been to.

Travel Tip: We purchased the Rome City Pass from Turbo Pass. It gets you access to all the big attractions, hop-on-hop-off bus, skip the line access at certain locations, and much much more. We visited places we had no initial intention of visiting and got right in with our pass. The feature we liked most is that we could just buy it for five days and visit most things as we felt like it.

FYI: As of this posting on 12/13/23 we do not work for nor are we paid for any recommendations we make on our blog.

Rome: Day 1

We flew in to Rome from Santorini via Athens. Our host Francesca, at Oasis Rome Centre Apartment, was super helpful in giving us a map and list of sites to see and restaurants to eat at. The apartment was perfect and highly recommended. It didn’t take long for us to settle in before having amazing pizza at Sapori e Delizie. After our first “tasting” we set out to get some sight-seeing in. We walked through several iconic Roman neighborhoods and crossed the River Tiber on our way to the Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi overlook atop Janiculum Hill for a panoramic view of the city.

Walking around Rome you get a real sense of the scope and magnitude of the history of the city. Aside from the large, well known historical locations there are amazing sights everywhere. Renaissance apartment complexes built on the foundations of ancient Roman walls. Bridges over the Tiber that were built during the time of the Empire. Egyptian obelisks brought to Rome by various emperors. Random remnants of 2000 year old walls in nearly abandoned alleys. Various monuments from the intervening millennia like the Garibaldi Monument commemorating the French army’s assault in 1849 or the stunningly massive Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of an independent, united Italy.

Rome: Day 2

Our second day in Rome was another day without a plan. We left the apartment, stopped for a tasting of some cappuccino and pastries at Panella, and set off in a different direction. Our wanderings brought us to the Spanish Steps, Piazza del Popolo, and the via del Corso. Dragon enjoyed a day of tiramisu, having samples for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The classic, hazelnut, and pistachio tiramisus at Pompi are so delicious! We walked 20 km on day two and saw so many amazing sights all around various neighborhoods in the center of Rome. There are historic buildings, basilicas, and monuments everywhere. We love aimlessly exploring on foot in cities like Rome because we see and experience so many things that are otherwise easily missed. 

Gear note: We averaged 15-20 km every day in Rome. The footing in a lot of European cities ranges from not great to pretty sketchy sometimes. Uneven cobblestone, tile, volcanic blocks of stone, cement and brick. We want to share our appreciation for our footwear. Dragon has exclusively worn Birkenstocks, both sandals and shoes. She’s especially found her Birkenstock QO 500 to be a lifesaver. Dog has been logging the kilometers in both his Birkenstock sandals and his Boulder born Lems Nine2Five. Again, we don’t have any sponsors and aren’t getting paid. We just want to share our experiences.

Rome: Day 3

Travel Tip: Start early! Despite visiting Rome in December the crowds still get very big. We got started early and were able to get a surprising number of photos without other people in them. Get started early to avoid the crowds.

We set out early intent on getting to several locations before the Sunday hordes. We made it to Trevi Fountain by 0730 and got some great pics with very few people there. The mobs at Trevi fountain later in the day are crazy huge! We followed that up with Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and the underground remnants of the stadium of Domitian all before our lunchtime tasting at O’Pazzariello. In the afternoon we continued our wander, discovering the Museum of Napoleon and finishing the day off at the Trajan Markets Museum of the Imperial Forum.

Travel Tip: Museums are free in Rome on the first Sunday of the month! I can’t tell you that is the case for every single museum (there are a lot). However, most museums in Rome honor this tradition.

Rome: Day 4

Visits to the Colosseum and the Vatican are the two scheduled activities with the Rome City Pass. You have a set time with PDF tickets in your email. I’m not sure there is ever a true slow day at the Colosseum, but a Monday in December was pretty close. I can’t tell you how much joy and awe the Colosseum brought us. OMG! In the spirit of Chris Farley from Tommyboy I have to tell you, “That…was…AWESOME!” The Flavian Amphitheater, or Colosseum, was built in under 10 years. It has stood largely intact for nearly 2000 years. It is a truly magnificent structure.

The Colosseum sits in the heart of the archaeological section of Rome. We proceeded to spend the rest of the day taking in all of the nearby sites including the Arch of Constantine, Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum, and Circus Maximus. Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum are both large areas that we literally spent hours walking through. It was a little rainy in the morning which seemed to have scared off some visitors. We managed to get a lot of great pictures with few or no people in them.

Rome: Day 5

Tuesday morning was our scheduled trip to the Vatican museum with a skip the line ticket. It was raining again and the Vatican was a good distance from our apartment for an early morning time slot. We utilized the metro for the trip over to Vatican City. The metro in Rome is cheap and easy to navigate.

Fun fact: According to Britannica.com Rome is the only city in the world that surrounds an entire country, Vatican City.

The Vatican Museums could easily be an entire day visit. We spent several hours taking in the incredible rooms and items on display, including the Sistine Chapel of course. It was a bit shocking to discover the amount of extremely dark, grim artwork on display in the heart of Christendom: beheadings, babies being murdered, more beheadings, spikes driven into heads… Of course there is also an endless amount of beautiful, glorious art and antiquities on display as well.

Leaving the Vatican Museums it was a short walk to St. Peter’s Basilica. After enjoying St. Peter’s Square we set out looking for another tasting. We unexpectedly discovered the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum which seemed too cool to bypass. Despite being tiny by our recent museum standards we enjoyed the experience of seeing Da Vinci’s sketches brought to life. We didn’t realize it even existed prior to walking by, but the Rome City Pass got us in there as well.

Our last stop of the day was a visit to the Capuchin Crypts. The museum and crypts of the Capuchin monks is everything the Vatican Museums is not. It is humble and real. Some may consider it dark and morbid, but it is truly a beautiful display of what would otherwise be a grim history of the Capuchins. We can’t show you any pictures as photography is prohibited, but check out the link we’ve provided.

Rome: Day 6

Another epic site on the Rome City Pass is the Castel Sant’Angelo. Originally built as the Mausoleum of Hadrian it was later expanded and built upon to be a critical military fortress and prison. It sits directly across the River Tiber from the ancient portion of Rome via the aforementioned bridge from ancient antiquity, the Ponte Sant’Angelo. The tour of the castle is surprisingly simple and relatively devoid of additional statuary, etc. The castle itself, combined with phenomenal views from the top, is worth the visit. Like so many other structures in Rome it is an epic edifice that has survived centuries and stands as one of many testaments to the Eternal City’s past. 

Our next stop was another short one, but no less amazing than some of the bigger sites. Vicus Caprarius is referred to as the City of Water. It is an archaeological site under the city that displays the wonders of the Roman aqueduct system. Again, our Rome City Pass got us in to this site as well. The underground world in Rome was a really cool aspect that we did not anticipate when planning our trip. 

We had lunch, visited Pompi for another round of tiramisu and finished Wednesday exploring more museums on our pass in a different part of town. The Baths of Diocletian was another monumentally large ruin from Roman times filled with statues. The nearby Palazzo Massimo museum was filled with three floors of amazing exhibits. 

Rome: Day 7

Completely into the Roman underground experience at this point we booked a tour not on our pass for our final full day in Rome. At Touristation Roma we arranged a visit to the Catacombs of San Callisto. Like the other necropolis we were not permitted to take photographs, but the tour of the catacombs was super cool and totally recommended.

The tour included a bus ride and our driver, Alessandro, made it even better. He took us along the ancient Appian Way, original parts of which still exist. He also showed us the Aurelian Walls, the Baths of Caracalla, the Pyramid of Cestius, the Porta San Paolo, the Temple of Hercules Victor, the Temple of Portuna, and the Mouth of Truth. 

After the bus tour we decided to get our walk in by visiting several of those sites he drove us past. We spent a fair bit of time walking around the Baths of Caracalla. Like so many other sites in Rome the bath complex and buildings were astonishingly huge in both size and scope. Our final day of sightseeing in Rome again left us in awe. 

Travel Tip: During our bus tour with Alessandro we discovered the Touristation offers bike tours including one along the Appian Way. That looked really fun and something we’d like to do on another visit.

Results of Wandering Rome for a Week

In so many ways I (Dog) am just in love with Rome. I know I told you there was no way to express all the things that Rome is. This was intended to just be a recap of where we went and what our experiences were. I’m hoping in some way it piques your interest in the Eternal City. Rome was a bucket list location for us and didn’t disappoint in any way. It ended up being so much more than we imagined. There is a legitimate reason for the large gap in blog posts. Rome just kept us going all day every day for a week. We could spend so much more time there as there is just so much to see. I can’t lie, I’m a bit smitten with Rome. Hopefully your visit will leave you with the same feelings I have for Rome.

As writer and critic Anatole Broyard said, “Rome is a poem pressed into service as a city.”