First, let me provide some background on myself. It should help you evaluate how my comments may converge with your planning or expectations. I really like ?adventure vacations.? I like to get far from the mainstream and climb on ancient monuments in very foreign lands. My two favorite vacations ever were Siem Reap, Cambodia and Bagan, Myanmar. But, my wife gets to pick also, and she tends to pick big cities in Europe. My anticipation was that I wouldn?t particularly hate a week in Rome, but I wouldn?t particularly enjoy it either.

Travel/Transportation:
We booked economy seats on British Air. If you are looking for cheap, this is a good place to look. Our fare was a hair over $600 from SFO, booking about 4 months in advance. I hoped that I could upgrade with AA miles, but they wouldn?t let me do that. Like most long-haul coach, seats were very cramped, food was borderline bad, and service has really gone downhill from the last time I was on this carrier. Going over wasn?t too bad because I slept the whole way. Coming back was a nightmare; the section was full of hyperactive adults. We left LHR nearly 2 hours late due to understaffing.

We took the local train from FCO to Trastevere station. Navigating through the airport to the train station was a breeze. Figuring out which was the local and which the express took only a few minutes just to double-check. Good thing I read on a travel site about the boxes to stamp your ticket, otherwise there was nothing there that would tell me of the requirement (not that it mattered, as it turns out). Taxi from Trastevere station to our B&B cost 7E.

For the most part, we walked everywhere. Navigation was a breeze with a decent map. And walking was actually a lot of fun. We took cabs only twice during the week: one morning up to the Borghese museum and one evening home from an operatic recital. Both of these rides were around 10E, though the one from the recital involved the cab driver getting lost, and me having to direct him. But, what?s a vacation without a little irony? I expected the traffic in Rome to be worse than it really was. It generally seemed to move along pretty smoothly.

Getting back to FCO was a bit more difficult because we had an early flight, and the first train would get us there only about 1 hour before our flight. Fortunately the doorman at our B&B offered to give us a ride for 25E, which seemed reasonable.

Lodging
This turned out to be a brilliant decision. I read numerous trip reports and reviewed numerous websites and considered three options: the Termini area, the Piazza Navona area and Trastevere. I was a little concerned about Trastevere being farther away from the city proper, but enticed by the charm factor. We finally decided on the Ancient Trastevere B&B. The room was exactly as it appears on the website?clean, comfortable and having several pieces of antique furniture. Cost was around 110E per night?maybe a bit cheaper if you go directly though Elisabetta rather than venere.com. Elisabetta was very helpful, even phoning her mother at one point to find out about a good place to buy tiles. The location was terrific. It?s about 1? blocks from the Mazzini Bridge, making it about a 10-15 minute walk to Piazza Navona, and a 5 minute walk to dozens of outdoor restaurants. Only thing is: don?t expect much for the breakfast part of B&B. It was a hard roll, Nescafe and OJ.

Food
We only had one bad meal in 7 days. That was a café down from the War Memorial that put a cheap, frozen breaded chicken patty on a bun and called it a chicken pannini. We ate nearly every dinner in Trastevere. Like I said, there were dozens of outdoor restaurants and every one we tried was a treat. We usually ordered two out of three from antipasti, primi and secundi, depending on what we were in the mood for. Generally drank a house wine or an inexpensive Frascati and all were perfectly acceptable. We quickly got into a routine of stopping in at the Umber Rose on the way to dinner (I forget what that was in Italian, but it is directly across from the Trastevere Museo Roma). This place had an extensive drink menu, reasonable prices and terrific antipasti served during happy hour.

I have to say that the repetition of the menus wore on both of us after a few days. There is only so much pizza and pasta that we can take?even admittedly fabulous pizza and pasta. As a consequence, we had an excellent Chinese lunch at a place just behind the Pantheon and an excellent lunch at an Indian restaurant?Jaipur, just off of Via Trastevere. And what happened to the meatballs and Italian sausage? I saw nary a one the whole week.

I love espresso and expected to have a few great ones. I hate to say it, but I only had one that was better than what you get at Starbucks. (I can hear it now: American dog!) But gelato turned into a twice a day exercise: at the 4:00pm ?gelato hour? and after dinner, strolling through Trastevere. It?ll be hard to eat American ice cream for a while.

Things to see
I think we hit just about all the places most would recommend for a week in Rome. We did the Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona, Pantheon, etc. But enough people have written about those, so I?ll just elaborate on the things that were a bit different than expected.

At the Coliseum, we hooked up with the Roman Promenade tour that hawks outside the site. Doing so saved us maybe ? hour in line (it didn?t look like a 1-2 hour line, as often reported). The guide was very informative and well worth the nominal expense. A second guide took us into the Forum area and basically pointed out some of the key points from one of the overlooking hills.

We spent some time in a Sunday flea market in Trastevere. It extended more than a mile down one street and spread off to several side streets as well. The merch didn?t compare with some of my favorite markets (Chatuchak, Otovalo, etc.), but we managed to find a couple things to buy.

The sculptures at Villa Borghese were worth a visit. I could have lived without seeing the paintings. (I?m not big on Renaissance art.) The Museum of Modern Art was also a disappointment, probably because anything after 1700 is considered as ?modern.?

We spent Wednesday at the Vatican. It was about a 15-minute walk from our room. We got there around 9:00am to queue up for the Papal Audience. It only took about 20 minutes to get through security, as there were at least a half dozen lines. The audience hall was cool and comfortable, even considering that it accommodated 12,000 people. The audience itself was kind of like a pep rally, with groups being singled out in one of six languages and standing up and cheering. One high point was when a choir from Cambridge University was recognized; they did about a 2-minute song that was glorious. From the audience, we went to the Vatican Museum. From the web reports, I expected a 1-2 hour wait, but we walked right in. While walking through, I remembered a line that the Coliseum guide made in touting his Vatican tour: ?They have some of the greatest artifacts in existence and nothing is identified.? Not exactly right, but not too far off either. After lunch, we went to St. Peter. There was an extremely long line when we walked past right after the audience but when we got there in mid afternoon, there was no line at all. There was, however, a long line waiting to get up to the dome, so we passed on that. St. Peter was magnificent, not to be missed.

Summary
Ok, it wasn?t climbing over temples in a jungle, but I liked it. I?m not very big on Roman or Classical architecture and if I don?t see another Renaissance religious painting for the rest of my life, I can die in peace. We were in the Termini area a couple times and I didn?t care for it either; it was too much like any other big city. On the plus side, I didn?t experience any of the congestion, rude behavior, petty theft that I expected. But, what I really enjoyed were the narrow winding lanes, little shops, the al fresco restaurants, the little ?surprise? piazzas. Those things alone exceeded expectations and made the week a winner in my mind. I wouldn?t mind going back someday just for that.

Thanks for the great report.
Where did you go for the tiles?

chiguy, thanks for this nice report.

You were there a week - was that the right amount of time for you? Also, when exactly were you there? Not too hot or too crowded with tourists?

Hi Fairhope,

We bought the tiles at the flea market in Trastevere. We shopped at all of the stores recommended in the DK Eyewitness guide, but every one of them took orders only. In no case could you walk in, pick out a bunch of tiles and walk out with them in a box.

Hi TuckH,

We were there the first week of September, the US Labor Day week. Weather was perfect, low to mid 80's every day. Tourists were not evident to the extent that other trip reports indicated. Like I said in the report, there was about a half-hour line at the Colliseum and at the Vatican Museum, we walked right in.

Thanks for your report. you two get to interesting places because you both differ

Hi chi,

Thanks for an interesting report.

Chiguy, nice report! I'll have to peruse it for tips. How hard was it to get tickets for the Papal Audience? We will be there on Wednesday so it may be an interesting thing to do. are you allowed to take pictures? (I know, stupid question).

thanks!

Hi flygirl

Sorry for the late reply--I've been out of pocket on business travel.

You can make reservation for the papal audience on-line and pick up tickets at St. Susanna near Termini. Be aware that the audience hall holds 12,000. No problem at all with cameras. though I was so far away that my flash had no impact relative to my zoom. So zoomed shots came out pretty dark. I took a few very hi-res shots without zoom and had good luck blowing them up.

Chiguy, Good report. We will be stayting in Trastevere next year. Could you give me any of the restaurant names where you had dinner.

We chose this area because we didn't go there during our first Rome visit, and it seemed like a more "typical" Roman neighborhood. Thanks.