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Insider tips for Rome

Hello all, am heading to Rome (for the first time ever) this weekend and am looking for insider tips on places to see/go/thing to do . Have read tons in guidebooks but would love to hear about any personal experinces and suggestions! ciao!

This has been posted here many times. We loved our time in Rome. Rome Trip Report November 24, 2000 We stayed at the Hotel Primavera. Piazza San Pantaleo, 3 - 00186 Roma. Tel. 06.68.80.31.09, Fax. 06. 686. 92. 65 DOUBLE EUR 73-89 Hall shower EUR 94-110 private shower Large rooms, good people. Located seconds from Piazza Navona. We easily walked everywhere. Vaticani, Pantheon, Fontana Di Trevi, Colosseo. A great hotel if you can get a room. It's on the main street Vittorio Emanuele. Not far by bus or taxi from the train station. Bus is just as easy. Stop is in front of the hotel. The rooms are all remolded. Quite, very nice, with doubled glass windows. We enjoyed looking out the window at all the people walking to and from Piazza Navona. We called from the train station and asked for a discount, which was granted. We were lucky. The next day the rooms filled up with reservations at higher prices. They made room for us in a room with a beautiful shower down the hall. That wasn't a problem. The place is so new and the rooms are huge. The family was friendly and experienced with tourist. Grandmother drove us to the airport at 3am. 75.000L ($35. USD). Here's some Internet information about Hotel Primavera. http://www.eurocheapo.com/rome/listings/selection/primavera.asp --------------Located just off the Campo dei Fiori, the Hotel Primavera offers newly remodeled doubles, triples and quads that are tastefully decorated and clean. The Primavera is crazy for marble, and they use it any chance they get: hallways, bathrooms and the lobby. If you're a fan of Roman chapels, look no further, as the Primavera's rooms look out onto just about every chapel in the neighborhood. Prices Lower Off-Season Breakfast Included ------------------------------------------------------------------------- When we arrived at the airport I asked the woman at the information counter where she last ate out for dinner. She seemed amused, circled a place on the map and gave me a name. The area Testaccio. The place Tuttifrutti. Via Luca della Robbia, 5 Tel/Fax 06.57.57.902 Start at the intersection of Via Marmorata and Via Galvani. Easy to find in the Testaccio area. Via Luca della Robbia is one block west on Galvani. Go there, you will not be disappointed. After walking around for one hour - really, that's why the instructions - we were directed to a storefront with the name Tuttifrutti written in magic marker on a tinted window. You can guess the rest. It's a private restaurant to avoid the liquor laws or paying the liquor tax. After two complimentary glasses of champagne and registering our membership, the owner sat down at our table and explained the entire handwritten menu. Which is different each day. Later we discovered he knew the woman from the airport information counter. We went the whole way. Champagne before dinner. Red and white wine. We ate several courses and watched the owner move between the tables chatting everyone up. Finishing up with desert, lemonchella, cafe. $USD 55. for two. The exchange rate was 2150 to USD. We walked back to our hotel along the banks of the Tevere River. Yes, a wonderful was evening. The amazing thing was every meal we ate in Rome was as good. Regardless if it cost us $2.50 or $30. We also did some shopping and found out about a huge inexpensive shopping district outside the city center on Via Tuscolana. We took Metro A to Subagusta station. And started walking back on Via Tuscolana. A busy street, the stores continue all the way back to Via Appia Nuova at Piazza de Re di Roma. You can find this area at the lower right hand corner of the tourist map.

Hm.... tips posted here are no longer insider tips!! Anyway, here is one: Ristorante Le Streghe (the Witches) run by three lovely ladies. Wonderful cooking, wonderful atmosphere.

Try the keyhole-with-a-view on the Aventine hill, the Protestant Cemetery and the Pyramid (Piramide metro), and the ruins along the Via Appia Antica. Also the Mamertine prison (by the Forum). Madam Butterfly is on at the Teatro dell'Opera, but it may be hard to get tickets. I'd avoid the Via Tuscolana area (recommended above), it's a dull area of ordinary high street shops - there are plenty of much more attractive places to spend your time (and money) if this is your first trip to Rome.

rome..any suggestions on how to direct my attempt at trying to get opera tickets?

Hi One thing I suggest is to always have a plan b--sometimes monuments or churches close earlier or re-open later than the times that guidebooks will indicate. If you do a search here on La Tartaruga, or go to the Rome restaurant Rants and Raves, you will see comments from me and others on this very fine (as in food, not in expense) wine bar/restaurant. I have a file on Rome; if you'd like to see it, email me.

Hi, Nancy. I just returned from my second trip to Rome last week. You're going to have a fabulous time! If you do a search for 'Rome Trip Report,' you'll pull mine up. I think it's the second hit. You can skip throught the text and just read the numbered items for the highlights. Have fun!

Plan to have some time to just wander around, explore small little streets. I like looking in all the different little shops, espcially those with household items (they have things there you rarely see here). It's also a great way to find good little restaurants. My favorite restaurant is Mario's in Trestavere (vio del moro), it's a very local, authentic and cheap little place with great food.

If you are going to climb Michelangelo's Dome in the Vatican, take the elevator as far as it will bring you. Also, bring hand sanitizer, as the walls on the way up to the dome are absolutely disgusting and slimy.

Get up and out the door early, especially if you like to take photographs with the least amount of other tourists wandering in your viewfinder. Going to the Vatican/St. Peter's early (around 7:00a.m.) was so nice. Walking inside St. Peters for the first time, I was probably only 1 of 8 or so other people who were there. Amazing experience, to me. The basilica filled up considerably in about 30 minutes.

If you visit the Vatican Museum and have had enough by the time you get to the Sistine Chapel, at the back of the chapel there are two exits, the left will take you back near the entrance and the right will deposit you at the side of St Peters. If you are up at the top of Via Nazionale on the left a couple of streets down from the Piazza Reppublica fountain there is a great restaurant called Zeus. Enjoy