donaquixote

We are 3 adults in our 60's who plan to rent an apt for a week in Rome. We want easy access to sights, supermarket (cooking dinner), and fairly quiet. We have narrowed our choices to an apt in the Prati area (metro A, Valle Aurela Sta), San Giovanni/St. John Lateran (metro A, Porta Furba Sta), and Vaticano (Ottaviano Sta).
Appreciate advice/insight in helping us make a decision.
Thank you in advance for your help.

kybourbon

None of those locations are easy to sites really. Why don't you look at something central in the pedestrian historic center?

geetika

I agree with kybourbon, much better to stay in the Navona/Campo di Fiori area. We were in Rome for 5 days in June with my mom who's in her 70s, we rented an apartment just off Piazza Navona and it was just perfect. Mom could come home for a break in the afternoons, a couple of days we went out early and came back later to pick her up. The sites are all quite close by, there's also the electric bus which is most convenient. Just give it a thought.

cmeyer54

Agree - look for a side street location near Campo. Then you can easily get to their markets and shops. Or, near Piazza Navona or Poppolo (but Via Del Corso does get noisy at night. What time of year are you going?? Will you want to have A/C, if windows need to be open at night, are you bothered by street noise?

annhig

I'm another one who agrees that for a first stay, you ideally want to be nearer the Piazza Navona/Pantheon area. The metro isn't going to be that much use to you as most of the centre isn't covered by it, but in any event, one of the joys of Rome is being able to walk around the centre not only in the day but at night, which is not going to be that easy if you've already gone back to your not so central apartment to eat.

Also, i know that it's useful to be able to be able to cook some meals but I hope that you're going to take advantage of the great food that you can find in Rome, as several threads here will testify.

nytraveler

Yet another vote for staying much more centrally. The Metro in Rome isn't very useful and if you're like us you will find you walk most places - and your selections are a long walk from most major sights.

michele_d

We stayed right around the corner from Campo Di Fiori in a two bedroom apartment. It was a great location as there is a market held daily in the Campo, as well as individual shops surrounding the Campo. We shopped for groceries daily. Very easy to get everywhere. We stayed in the Balestrari apartment from Sleep in Italy. We could be in the mix of things within minutes. Even with the windows open at night, it was very quiet.

donaquixote

Good morning,
I appreciate your responses and am now questioning our apt choices. We thought location to a metro would quickly get us to different sights and then we would do the walking. We were concerned that staying in Campo di Fiori area would require too much walking to get to a metro to travel to other areas and then more walking resulting in miles roundtrip. We are not opposed to walking as we do that at home. We are also concerned that the Campo di Fiori is noisy at night. Is this thinking incorrect? Being used to the NYC subway, how efficient is the metro?
Thank you!

kybourbon

No, the metro in Rome is nothing like the metros in NYC, Chicago, Boston, Paris, London, etc. The metro in Rome is very limited (basically only 2 lines although they are working on a 3rd) and only skirts the historic area on one side. It can be a long trek just getting down into certain metro stations along with having to change lines at Termini. Staying in the pedestrian center, you can walk to most things easily.

NYCFoodSnob

I've been living and working in NYC for well over thirty years. When it rains, the NYC subway is the only reliable source of travel, and I do not hesitate to use it. I feel the same way about subways in Paris and Tokyo. They are invaluable.

I've been traveling to Rome for almost as many years. I have never seen their underground metro. I can count on one hand how many times I've been on a Rome bus. I understand people find public transport useful in Rome. I prefer to be centrally located and walk or call for a taxi.

There are tourists who benefit from the savings of an apartment or hotel, located further away from the center, and figure out how to use public transportation to suit their touring needs. Obviously, I'm not one of those tourists. But if you are, all three neighborhoods you mention are fine to live in. Good luck working out the other details.

annhig

it's not a matter of the efficiency of the metro, but the fact that there are relatively few stations in the very centre of the city because of what's underneath - every time they try to put in a station they uncover yet more of ancient Rome that needs to be researched and preserved so they try to avoid doing it.

if you have a look at this map, you'll see how few metro stops there are in the very centre of Rome:

http://www.rome.info/map/

so for getting about the centre, walking and using the buses is generally better than the metro.

see above about the noise - really it's not too much of a problem and you can always wear ear-plugs! I prefer the Piazza Navona to the campo dei fiori which is where I think you are most likely to get noise from youngsters at night and the market traders setting up in the morning, but either should be fine. A few years ago, we spent a week in an apartment near the Via Coronari which was terrific and so easy to walk virtually everywhere we wanted to go; we really liked it but I know that someone else on this board who stayed there didn't like it because of the lack of natural light in the bedrooms which are at basement level. Anyway, here are the details:

http://www.lacasadiclelia.webs.com/

feel free to ask any questions if you are interested.

otherwise, VRBO, Sleep in Italy, and Rental in Rome are well known apartment letting agents, but there are many more.

Paqngo

We stayed in an apartment right off of Campo dei Fiori and had no problem with noise. The bedrooms were at the back. Loved the location. It was great to have a kitchen and livingroom. Since there were two couples the cost was very good. When we do go back to Rome we will rent here again. Residenzagiubbonari.com Have fun!

NYCFoodSnob

<i><font color=#555555>"it's not a matter of the efficiency of the metro, but the fact that there are relatively few stations in the very centre of the city because of what's underneath"</font></i>

Well, if the ruins don't speak to the issue of efficiency, then what does?

annhig

That's obscure, NYC, even for you. You yourself accept that the metro is not a good way of getting around central Rome but it's not because it's inefficient, it's because it doesn't go there. You might as well criticise the NY subway for being an inefficient way of seeing Boston.

bvlenci

I rarely use the metro in Rome, but I do use buses a lot.

By the way, you can now use Google Maps to plan your route by bus in Rome. They have the entire ATAC database available to their mapping programs. Google Maps also knows the locations of many shops, hotels, and restaurant, so you often don't need to know the addresses of your starting and ending points.

The mapping takes into consideration traffic conditions, detours, and other temporary route changes, so you can't use dates very far in the future. Do use a date that's the same day of the week as your travel date, and an appropriate time of day. The default is "right now", and if you're looking for routes at midnight, you'll only see night buses unless you change the time.

Alec

Last year I had a pleasant stay near the Vatican Museums (Metro Ottaviano or Cipro) in an apartment. Very handy for the Vatican - which was my main focus for the stay, but the historic centre was also quite handy - a short bus ride or 20-30 min on foot. It had several supermarkets within a short walk, and the area felt more residential with everyday shops and a fresh food market. And the metro connection was handy for the Termini and the Ciampino Airport. While I like the historic centre near Piazza Navona, don't write off Vatican/Prati as a possible location.

michele_d

I agree about staying on the Campo Di Fiori. Potentially noisy. That is why we choose to stay a few hundred feet down a side street. Very quiet, but also very convenient...steps from the campo. One rainy evening my husband and son popped over to the campo for a drink while my DIL and myself stayed in the apt. They were in the midst of activity in a minute.

NYCFoodSnob

<i><font color=#555555>"the metro is not a good way of getting around central Rome but it's not because it's inefficient, it's because it doesn't go there."</font></i>

Good grief. Rome's metro is inefficient by default because it can't go where many would like it go. Therefore, it's only efficient to those who find it useful, which is far fewer than those who would use it if it could travel through the city-center ruins.

geetika

We stayed at this Rental in Rome apartment just off Piazza Navona, you come down the stairs and are in the piazza in just a minute! But it wasn't noisy even with the windows open, we really liked the place, you might want to have a look at it. Apart from the regular and electric buses taxis are also not expensive for short distances, especially if there are three of you. But just make sure to check the meter is reset when you get into the taxi!

http://www.rentalinrome.com/piazzana...0611&numPers=4

kybourbon

Some on this thread have never used the public transport in Rome or been to any of these stops.

>>>San Giovanni/St. John Lateran (metro A, Porta Furba Sta),<<

This is not S. Giovanni (it's 4 stops past there) and I would drop this location altogether as it's simply too far out of the way.

>>> Prati area (metro A, Valle Aurela Sta
Vaticano (Ottaviano Sta)<<<

While these are more convenient than your other apartment, either could be noisy depending on the apartment because the streets in these areas have traffic (often quite heavy). Both are outside the ZTL so have more traffic than the center where traffic is restricted. The Valle Aurelia is not walkable to any sites really even though it's on the backside of the Vatican (you can't enter the Vatican from that side and it would be a very long trek around to the front). The Valle Aurelia station also has a heavily traveled road (SS1) next to it that comes into the city from the ring road (many heading to underground parking under the Cipro station) so your apartment could get a lot of traffic noise.

The Ottaviano station is a bit more convenient as you could walk to the Vatican Museums and St. Peter's. The area isn't quaint like the historic center/Trastevere as many of the buildings are much newer.