my top tips

...so, here are Old Man's Rome Tips

Things to see on foot: Trevi Fountain, Pantheon - nb closed Sun mornings, but one of the few still-extant Old Building that gives a flavour of what the rest looked like back in the day - Colosseum, Forum, Palatine Hill.

Top Tip here is walk up towards the Colosseum on the straight road, on your right is a little side entrance to the Forum. There are almost never queues for tickets there, queues at the other entrances can be up to an hour. Your ticket gets you in to the Colosseum as well which otherwise can have a 1-2 hour ticket wait. So go in that side entrance, see the forum and the Hill, walk over to the Colosseum, walk right past the queues of Annoyed Americans and straight in. There's a little Spar near the Trevi Fountain where you can sort yourself for breakfast and packups every day if you don't want to eat at a restaurant three times a day.

One day: go to Termini near the train station, get the Archeobus out on the Appian Way (different from, and better than, the other tour buses - was green last time I was there), see the Catacombs.

Vatican: queues horrendous in the morning so go late morning-lunchtime. Do the museum first, end up in the Sistine Chapel. Now, this is very important: look for a guided tour (there will be loads), tag on the end when they go out of their Special Door. This gets you inside the security at St Peters, otherwise it's an hour or two waiting for the separate security screening (they screen you once going in to the museum, no need to go through it all again voluntarily!). Otherwise you end up outside and have to queue up all over again which is Just Silly. It's well worth the €5 to go up to the Cupola (turn right when you leave off the back of your tour group outside the museum). It's an incredible cathedral. It's REALLY worth seeing the underground bit as well, details of how to set this up at User Posted Link - there's a hole in the cupola which shines a ray of sunlight all the way down to St Peter's Tomb.

Everyone will say go to Pompeii but instead I'd strongly recommend a day at Ostia Antica (NB closed Mondays) it’s a million times better than Pompeii, just acres of genuine Roman buildings which *weren't* destroyed by a Volcano. Far fewer people know about it/go there, so the crowds are much, much more manageable. Take your own water/food as what is there is extortionate. Total cost €1.50 to get there each on the Metro (start at Termini or anywhere else, go to Pyramide and change to the Urban train which your Metro ticket also covers - you'll need to buy another ticket to come back) and €8 to get in). One or two stops on from there is the Lido which is a lovely warm beach.

Keep your stuff close by - the pickpockets on the Metro are really good (mate had a load of stuff nicked once).

Posted By: Jumbo1, Mar 20, 10:35:51