Maybe do Florence as a half-day stop en route to Rome? Put bags in station storage in Florence and spend several hours here and take train to Rome - negates relocating one hotel - saving lots of time IME.

3 Days in Rome: The Invisible Corners of an Ancient City
 

3 Days in Rome: The Invisible Corners of an Ancient City
Day 1: Ruins, history and love…

Your areas to cover today would be the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Take the metro to the Colosseo station and a sharp right from the station will take you to the foot of the Colosseum. The three places are adjacent to one another and one ticket gives you access to all of them.

Day 2: Exploring the city

Places to visit: Vatican City, Piazza del Popolo, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon

Start your day with Vatican city, a country within Rome. It inhabits the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican museums span through 7 kms and you are sure to find your own explorations ravishing, but the Sistine Chapel, the double helix exit stairwell and Basilica are some of our favourites. If you are travelling with Dan Brown fans, please make sure you keep them leashed and under surveillance at all times. The museum gates open at 9 AM and it starts getting crowded real fast. So, go there early and spend the most of the day there.

Day 3: Surprises…

Places to visit: Mouth of truth, Pyramid of Caius Cestius, Baths of Caracalla

No one knows when this belief originated regarding mouth of truth. But if you’re a liar, the mouth of truth would know and the inserted hand would be cut off! The belief faded and gave place to fun and photo opportunities.

5 alive, how do they pronounce bruschetta in the US?

It's not that there is a U.S. pronounciation of bruschetta, bvlenci, it's just that most people there mispronounce it "broo-shetta." Including most servers in "Italian" restaurants.

It's not that there is a U.S. pronounciation of bruschetta, bvlenci, it's just that most people there mispronounce it "broo-shetta." Including most servers in "Italian" restaurants.>>

not just in the US. It is funny how in the UK people will try so hard to pronounce french properly, but other languages are mangled, even names. There is an english rugby player called Cipriani who is called "Sipriani" even by himself, and I won't even try to work out how I could explain how my husband's relatives pronounce their surname which is Calcagnile. [the Egyptian river makes an appearance].

However my suspicion is that most italians are no better at pronouncing english than we are at pronouncing their language which is some comfort.

Yeh brew-shetta here too!

Young people in Italy have all studied English in school, so they're beginning to pronounce more or less correctly words that were consistently mispronounced by their elders.


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Ananthim neglects to mention that the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum have hours-long ticket lines most of the year, so tickets should be reserved in advance.

In the case of the Colosseum there may still be a long wait to get in even if you have a ticket, because there's a safety limit on the number of people who can be inside.

The Vatican Museums apparently doesn't have any such limit. They're packed in like the Lexington Avenue line in midtown Manhattan at rush hour. I've often wondered how they would manage to evacuate the Vatican Museums in an emergency, especially that long, long corridor leading to the Sistine Chapel, which doesn't seem to have any lateral exits.

I wouldn't consider the Mouth of Truth to be an important sight in Rome. It also has a very long wait, and for what? To stick your hand into a manhole cover?

Young people in Italy have all studied English in school, so they're beginning to pronounce more or less correctly words that were consistently mispronounced by their elders.>>

i'm sure that you are right, bvl, though my friends in Venice who teach english to Italian school students say that it can be the devil's own job to get some of them to say anything, so in that at least, they are not that different from their english foreign-language-speaking-averse peers.

As for correct pronunciation, I was surprised when I first went to Germany to stay with my penfriend that she and her friends pronounced my name as "Enn". When I asked about this [as politely as possible of course] they said that that was how they had been told A should be pronounced. This was quite a long time ago of course so it's possible that their teachers had been watching too many 1940s films featuring Celia Johnson et al. I have often wondered if when they started to say it properly they were then corrected by their teachers.

The Mouth of Truth - have to agree with bvlenci but just a manhole cover? Well a really neat one though!

https://www.google.com/search?q=mout...w=1745&bih=863

My impression is that Italian knowledge of, and correct pronounciation of, English, has come a long way in recent years. When we are in Italy, which we've been in several times in the past 2 years, if we are together, I speak Italian and do the necessary translation. My DH speaks no Italian, so when I'm not nearby he's on his own. I have several times come back into an Italo-English conversation going on between my DH and, let's say, an Italian shopkeeper or waiter, and the Italians' comprehension and pronounciation has been good enough to understand (at least in cities and big towns and tourist villages), but varying depending on how far outside a big city you are.

It wasn't too long, however, when we were in Milan and northern Italy in freezing cold weather last November, that my DH learned to pronounce "un caffé corretto, per favore, con grappa." Funny how language isn't all that difficult when you need or want something.

Since almost all English vowel sounds are pronounced as diphthongs, it's very difficult for most speakers of other European languages to approximate their sounds. The short "a" sound in English is also pronounced differently from one region to another, both in England and in the US. It's one of the sounds used to mark dialect boundaries.

Yes like in aunt and aunt - most say 'ant' but some, especially Afro-Americans, say 'awnt'

<<Yes like in aunt and aunt - most say 'ant' but some, especially Afro-Americans, say 'awnt'>>

In the UK, most of us say "Aunt" as in "aren't" so there's another variation.

But in modern day [as opposed to 1940s] english there is really only one way to say the A in "Ann", which sounds exactly like the A in the german word "Apfel".

Ann, My middle name is Ann, and my Irish parents pronounced it with the A in apfel, but in the US, the pronunciation is usually a dipthong shaded off towards "Enn". If you say, "there's hay in the barn" and run "ay in" together to a single sound, you're getting close. Maybe your friends' German teacher was very old, or studied in the US.

Well in Ann Arbor, my home town, it was always ann like and without the d. Never heard anything like 'enn' either for Ann. And this is the midwest where in school we learnt that midwesterners have no accent and speak proper dictionary English - much like heard on national news broadcasts, etc. Everyone else has an accent!

And this is the midwest where in school we learnt that midwesterners have no accent and speak proper dictionary English - much like heard on national news broadcasts, etc. Everyone else has an accent!>>

I think that applies to everyone, Pal. I'm sure I have no accent at all!!!

BVL - you may be onto something there. My pen friend lived [and still lives] in the Pfalz which was in the French sector but there were certainly lots of US personnel in the US sector around Munich.

Hi everyone, we’re are considering booking a tour package or creating our own itinerary. We’re weighing the two and being our first time in Italy (Rome/Venice and a sprinkle of Florence) trying to decide what’s the best option. Being it will be a 7-day possibly 9, not counting arrival day, we want to absorb as much culture, museums, architecture, food and wine, souvenirs, etc if we can. With tour, depending on the package, everything will be included as far as tickets to museums, train transportation from cities. My concern is hotel, I don’t want any spot, prefer a nice authentic place centrally located. We’ve been studying everything from where to visit, lodge, places and things to do. Along with the website and especially the pictures Isabel posted, which is awesome. Oh, by the way, as you may know that I told my wife about the trip and she couldn’t believe it, very, very excited. I let read all of the posts and now she’s doing a lot of studying and getting advice from people who visited. November is not far away, so planning, preparation and not procrastinating, is on a high. You guys, give me a shout, believe me, each post is read and considered. Much Love!

Arthur, I doubt you'll find anyone here who would suggest a tour as opposed to planning the trip yourself. Italy is a very easy destination, all things considered. Tickets to museums, train tickets, and such are a breeze to arrange these days on the internet - a far cry from what was involved decades ago when some of us started traveling - a few clicks and you're done. You're almost certain to get better accommodations arranging them on your own. You can catch a glimpse of something as you wander around and have a lovely diversion that will become a special moment in your trip memories. Being in charge of your own schedule is priceless, IMO.

Agree that you do not need a tour for your trip. Do not recommend you stop in Florence for a day as it takes away from Rome. Also, we did that on our first family trip to Italy and a few years later no one remembered much about Florence and we returned for a week to see it again