We are going to Rome the last week of March of our honeymoon. Since it's the end of the off-season I was hoping we could still get some good deals on hotels. Can anyone offer any advice? We want to stay somewhere nice, yet economical. Also, what can we expect in the way of sightseeing and tours that time of the year? I know some places have earlier closing hours, but is anything of significance shut down completely?<BR>Thanks for any help you can give.

Even though it's not high season, there's still much tourist activity and everything is open as always. We were there late march in '01. It went up to 80 during the day. We stayed at albergo Santa CHiara (3*), located behind the Pantheon (very good location). The hotel was very nice, also had a great breakfast but it was warm at night in the room. The hotel had a/c but it's not activated until May (true in most of Italy). With the windows opened it was cooler but noisy (we faced a busy street). We had a suite and the connected room (we were with our 2 kids), was perfectly quiet because it faced a courtyard. When considering hotels, request a room not facing a busy street, as you may have similar problem. Enjoy!

1 more things, you will need reservations for the Borghese Gallery (well worth the visit), but a day or 2 in advance should be early enough. Other specialty tours probably need advance reservations as well.

Marj: Can you please say how do you get resevations to Borghese Gallery? I thought from what I read that they don't take reservations, though they only allow 300 people in a time. Can you clarify and provide info of website or phone # for reservations? Thanks.

For Borghese reservations, we got the phone number fro our hotel and called 1 day in advance.

Marj: Many thanks.