Advice on apartment location in Rome
 

We are 3 adults in our 60's with limited Italian who are planning a week long stay in Rome in April. We are looking for an apartment that will allow us to access tourist sights (Vatican, museums, etc) either together or alone, supermarkets/bakeries for preparing meals. The Italian Tourist Bd (NYC) advised against Tastevere as being too far & would require much time on the metro. After researching many apts, we have located some in the Campo de Fiori, Vaticano, San Giovanni, & Esquinol area. Please advise A) is it better to be in walking distance or is public transportation fine; B) advice regarding the following addresses/neighborhoods as to preferable locations for our needs:
1) Viale delle Milizie 108, 00192 Rome (Vaticano)
2) Via Principe Arnedeo & Via Mamiami (Esquinol)
3) Via Angelo Emo 147 Rome (Prati Vaticano)
4) Via dei Cappelari 13 (Campo de Fiori)
5) Via Crescenzio, 82, Rome (Vaticano)
6) San Giovanni area near metro Re di Roma
7) Camp II (Campo de Fiori)

Thank you!

Public transportation is fine but with your limited Italian you might find it difficult to figure out, even if you are NYers -- and most people enjoy walking in Rome.

The apartments near Campo de'Fiori probably offer you the best all around option for walking rather than relying on public transport, although if you are planning on a day at the Vatican and a visit to the Borghese galleries, learning which tram or bus will get you there from the Campo de'Fiori neighborhood will help save your feet. The nearby Largo Argentina is a hub for trams and buses that fan out all over town.

If apartment number 7 on your list is right int the Campo de'Fiori you might find it extremely noisy until late at night with bar-hopping, rowdy students and also again in the early morning when they are setting up the food market stalls. The other apartment would be a bit more removed from that. Can you find reviews to read? If not, you might ask on the Slow Travel website, or look at its reviews of apartments on that very street.

You will have the food market of the Campo de'Fiori itself plus loads of bakeries in that area (some of Rome's best). Restaurants can be pricey or tourist traps, so you will need to do some research in advance. You can walk to Trastevere from there very easily (but you also need to avoid the tourist traps when it comes to restaurants there too).

Provided that you are not too far north of St Peter's square, I like the Vatican area more than most people do, even though I rarely go to the Vatican when I am in Rome! But it is great shopping district and has a couple of nice eateries squirreled away (and a lot of very bad ones) but most of all the streets are flat and public transportation around that area is zippy. However, if you want a very atmospheric stay in some of the oldest streets in Western Europe, then being around Campo de'Fiori is soaked in that feeling.

Just try to read as many reviews as you can of individual apartments. No point in having a great location if the plumbing doesn't work.

(In case my post wasn't clear, it sounds to me like the Via dei Cappellari apartment might be the best, unless it has problems with the apartment itself.

I have stayed in Campo de' Fiori area several times and find it to be very convenient. You are close to the morning food market and there are several shops close by. It can be hectic, but I enjoy the activity.

We are in our late 50s and love to walk; we did not take public transportation and walked everywhere (Vatican, Lateran, Trastevere, Borghese). Certainly the Pantheon and Piazza Navona area (and a number of charming churches) are within and easy walk. The Colosseum area can be reached in about half an hour--I always loved walking the back streets to get there, passing interesting sites like the Turtle Fountain.

But a number of buses pass nearby on the Corso so public transportation is an easy option and probably preferable if you are worried about wearing yourself out before even starting a Vatican tour.

Can't speak to the other locations, though.

You wouldn't be spending much time on the metro if you stayed in Trastevere, because there's no metro station anywhere near there. Trastevere is a large area, and some parts of it are more convenient than some of the other locations you mention. For example, the Re di Roma metro station is much further from the center than the most convenient part of Trastevere, which is the part nearest to the Tiberina island, which is very prominent in the river, near the "nose" of the profile formed by the river.

The Vatican area is another large area; Via Emo is not central at all. Of the three, Via Crescenzio is the most centrally located. Via delle Milizie is near a metro station, but the metro isn't very useful for most sightseeing in Rome.

Numbers 4 and 7 are the absolutely most central of the locations you mention. Via dei Cappellari is a nice little street. If number 7 is right on the Campo de'Fiori, I would prefer number 4, because the Campo can be noisy with carousing foreign exchange students.

And, I wouldn't rule out Trastevere altogether. If you get a lodging near the Tiberina island end of Viale di Trastevere, or near the pedestrian bridge (Ponte Mazzini), you'd be within walking distance of Piazza Navona and Campo de'Fiori. The number 8 tram, which runs along Viale di Trastevere, would bring you to Piazza Venezia, near the Roman Forum and Colosseum. I've also walked to the Vatican many times from that area.

I've stayed in an apartment on via dei Cappellari before, with my sister. Good location and as long as you're a little bit away from the Campo (and 13 is fine), it shouldn't be too noisy/crazy.

I've read that staying near the Vatican is too far away from most of the other sights that people usually want to see while in Rome.

We stayed in the Vatican area, and we found that to be true, Finecheapboxofwine. We managed very well on public transportation, even without any Italian, took buses and metro, but waiting for the bus at the end of a long day of walking to return to the convent where we were staying wasn't ideal.

Finecheapboxofwine,

It depends on where in the Vatican neighborhood you are located and what you want to see.

If you are on the same side of the Vatican as the Castel Sant'Angelo, and not any further "up" than the entrance to the Vatican museums (say, near the Ottaviano metro station), then you have about a 20 minute walk to the Spanish Steps, 10 more minutes from there to the Trevi Fountain. It's a 20 minute walk from the Lepanto area of the Vatican to the piazza Navona, and a 5 minute walk from the to the Pantheon, or 10 to the Campo de'Fiori.

But if your main interest is the Colosseum or the Capitoline Museums, then you would want to take the metro from the Lepanto station.

Other areas around the Vatican mean much longer walks, plus more limited public transportation. But the main reason people don't favor staying around the Vatican is the architecture is mainly from 18th forward and has fewer streets and piazza dating back to ancient Roman times.