Rome Forum: Tours and Tor expenses in Rome

Hi Donna

Your feed back is much appreciated.

We do want to experience as much of rome as possible, because we will be there for 8 Days.

We will be arriving on the 29/04/2012 ,and would love to see the specatular colluseum as well as the trevi Fountain and not forgetting the Vatican Musuem.You have mentioned that we need to book ahead of time ,do you perhaps know where we can book these tours or if whether busses leave from our place of accommodation (we are staying at the +-17 km away from the Airport Roma Fiumicino).

Thank you.

With 8 days, you'll be able to see Rome at a relaxed pace.

One of your first steps is to get a guidebook and familiarize yourself with where the various sights are located relative your hotel (and you'll get better advice if you mention the name and address of the hotel).

Given a reasonably central hotel, nearly everything you'll want to see is within walking distance or a short bus ride. But take your time - you have a relatively long stay so you can work with one destination per day and not kill yourself rushing around. For example, St. Peter's Basilica & Vatican Museums would cover a good chunk of one day (and be fairly exhausting), then another day for the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine, etc.

To fill in time between the major sights be sure to stop for a cafe and a pastry, some gelato, etc. And be sure to stop and enjoy the smaller churches - many have remarkable histories and interiors that will amaze you.

Finally, for many basic answers, be sure to browse the links right over there ->

With 8 days in Rome, you should be able to visit some of the places out of Rome also as day trip. Search the TA for tips on itinerary and day trip suggestions. Also get a good guide book from either Lonely Planet or Rick Steve Italy 2012.

This section of the city's Tourist Information site should answer many of your transport questions...

turismoroma.it/infoviaggio_categorie/…

.... and the others the others - as well as a few you've not thought of yet!

Hope that's a help,

Peter

For booking a tour of the colosseum you can use the official site:

www.ticketclic.it/Gb/HTML/musei/colosseo.cfm

click on the "collect onsite" button in the middle of the page for booking tours.

For the vatican museums you can book the official tour or entry tickets at:

…vatican.va/musei/tickets/do…

All of these tickets or tours allow you to bypass the lines. It isn't required to book entry tickets ahead of time but if you wish to do a tour you should book that before you get to Rome.

I don't know the hotel you are staying at so if you can post a link I might be able to help with transport questions.

donna

Hi

And thank you to all that have responded, you have given me alot of insight and information on how to plan my trip.

Donna we will be staying at the Aris Garden Hotel.

And also is Rome busy during the month of may?

And whats the weather like, the forecast websites says moderatley hot, what do we pack to expect?

once again thank you all for your feedback much apprecaited.

Your hotel is quite far from the center of Rome. Walk to Piazza Eschilo and take the No. 709 bus to EUR-Fermi. At EUR-Fermi, take Metro B direction Rebibbia to Termini. There you can either change to Metro A or take a bus to anywhere you might want to go from the major bus hub in front of the station.

On the way to Termini, Metro B has a stop at Colosseo, which would be convenient for an "ancient Rome" day.

A single ticket valid for 75 minutes costs 1 Euro. It might be worth your while to buy a seven-day pass for 16 Euro.

I have to say your hotel is miles from anywhere and not apparently near a rail line. This is going to make your commute to the city quite difficult. Can you change it?

I don't know if you have used maps.google.com but you can plot places on it and see which ones are close or far. It will also give you walking time and routes. This shows how far out the hotel is.

http://g.co/maps/x2u8k

May is warming up and pleasant usually, but that is not a prediction. Pack layers in coordinating colours so you can warm up or cool down as necessary. We also travel with a spray jacket that folds into a small pouch and a folding umbrella just in case.

If you take the Vatican Museums tour you can exit from that into St Peters Basilica and avoid the long security lines for the church.

We make a list of things we would really like to see/do. We find that Rome repays some advance planning. Then apart from booked things we can choose according to the weather and our degree of tiredness. We also group things together for ease of walking each day.