Recently, I’ve had the amazing opportunity to visit Rome, Italy. It was absolutely one of the best experiences of my life, to date. I’m going to share with you all my tips and ticks as well as things I was surprised by in the city. Additionally, I’ve included the must see locations while in Rome.
Things that surprised me:
-Apertivio. The whole concept. Awesome! Apertivio is basically appetizers and is a very common concept at restaurants in Rome. People will make their reservation for apertivio which includes a drink and finger food. The finger food can vary but in all 3 of my experiences it was amazing quality and enough to be my dinner for the night.
-There are free water stations around the public that you can fill your water bottles. These stations also have free chargers. Never pay for water! Always try and find these fountains. The spout can be plugged and it will force the water out the top where you can drink from it like a school water fountain.
-The streets are so slippery. Cobbles stone and sheet rock are not great when it rains. It makes sense why asphalt and concrete is textured the way it is. Wear shoes with a lot of tread, I wore converse and new balances the whole trip.
-The city is very walkable, more than you’d imagine. You could walk the whole city if you wanted there are always sidewalks. I averaged 24,000 steps a day and totalled over 100,000 steps over the whole trip. However, there is an amazing public transit system including bus and metro. Use these to your advantage! They are incredibly easy to navigate and are tap and go.
-Not all streets have the pedestrian light, some just have the crosswalk which in this case you have to step into the street pretty far to get traffic to stop. They will stop, you just have to be bold.
-The doors are massive and very thick and everyone slams them.
-There are cigarette atms.
-People walk very leisurely. There is no fast walking. If you walk fast people will think you’re in an emergency.
-Big washing machines aren’t a thing and dryers don’t exist.
Must see locations!
(All of these locations are relative to Rome for example, Florence is a 2.5 hour train ride from Rome.)
-Colosseum
-Pantheon
-Trevi Fountain
-St. Peter’s Basilica
-Roman Forum
-Piazza Navona
-Castel Sant’Angelo
-Sistine Chapel
-The Vatican
-Villa Borghese
-Campagna Amica Market (Address: Via di S. Teodoro, 74, 00186 Roma RM, Italy)
-Farmers market-Porta Portese (Address: Piazza di Porta Portese, 00153 Roma RM, Italy)
-Pompeii 2.15 hours
-Amalfi Coast 2.5 hours
-Positano 3.5 hours
-Tuscany 1.5 hours
-Amalfi coast 3.5
The best advice I can give is to build out time for yourself within your trip to just explore! I’m type A and usually have a plan for my plan. However, on this trip I left multiple days where I just went out and saw what I could see. This allowed me to end up in places I never imagined. Enjoy!