Italy Travel Guide: Rome

In case you missed it, be sure to check out the first part of our Italy trip to Florence & Tuscany HERE, the second part of our trip to Positano & the Amalfi Coast HERE, and my Italy Packing Guide!

I am so excited to finally share the third and final part of our 16-day Italy trip with you in a Rome travel guide!  Going into the trip, it was one of the destinations I was most excited for (thanks to the Lizzie McGuire movie, maybe?) and it did not disappoint!  We took a car from our hotel in Positano to the train station in Naples (approx. 1.5 hour drive) and caught a train from Naples to Rome (about a 1.5 hour ride).

Rome is a much larger city compared to the others we had been to, and so they have Uber.  We took an Uber from the train station immediately to Hard Rock Café. Now, I am so embarrassed to admit that I even went to a Hard Rock in somewhere with food as incredible as Rome has, but I 100% blame it on the pregnancy.  I was 6 weeks pregnant at the time and had a complete food aversion to all Italian food after about day 12.  I hadn’t been eating much considering Italian food is the onlyoption in Positano, and so I shamelessly got myself chicken fingers and ranch the moment we arrived in Rome.

After lunch, we headed to our Airbnb which was right next to the Trevi fountain. It was so fun to stay so close to the fountain because of all the hustle and bustle, but it definitely did make for some noisier nights.  This was also my very first experience in an Airbnb and it was wonderful!  If you are heading to Rome and want to stay in this area, I definitely would recommend it.

After dropping our luggage off and settling in, we got changed and headed out to the Spanish Steps to explore a bit before dinner. It was pretty busy but still so cool to see.  There are little luxury stores all around the area where the Spanish Steps are, and it was so fun to pop in each of them!

We grabbed a snack (no drinks for pregnant girls…haha) at the coolest rooftop bar right near the Spanish steps in the Rinascente Mall.  This mall has tons of different designer stores and boutiques!  It has a full Louis Vuitton store, as well as whole floors dedicated to shoes, clothes, etc.  On the bottom floor they had a tax refund center, Global Blue, where you can get back the tax you paid on items over a certain dollar amount (I believe when we were there it was about $150 and the tax refund was about 10%).  Just a heads up: You may have to pay tax when you come back to America, depending on the value of the items you purchase.

The next day, we spent the whole day walking through Rome (over 11 miles!) and exploring by foot.  We started at the Pantheon which totally looks like it does in all the history books.  And if you’re in the square of the Pantheon (the Piazza Della Rotunda) at lunch or dinner time, there are the cutest cafes that surround it!

After checking out the Pantheon we headed over to the Vatican to hear the Pope speak.  It is quite an event when he speaks and draws a huge crowd!  It was a bit underwhelming because he speaks out of the tiniest, tallest window and the whole speech is in Latin…haha!  Super neat to see, but we didn’t stick around for very long before heading to Campo De’ Fiori for a quick snack.  This is a little “farmers market” area in Rome where you can find awesome things like oils, spices, and cheeses to bring back home for souvenirs.

And because he hadn’t had enough pizza, Daniel wanted to eat lunch a super highly recommended “hole in the wall” spot called Da Baffetto.  I wasn’t into having pizza again, but he says it was incredible!

After lunch, we walked across the bridge into the “hipster” neighborhood of Rome, Trastevere.  It is such a fun place to spend the afternoon strolling through if you have extra time!  There are tons of local spots and adorable homes throughout the whole neighborhood.

On our way back into the City Center, we stopped at Gelateria Della Palma which is a gelato spot with over 150 flavors!!!  This was by far our favorite gelato place in all of Italy, and the black raspberry was our favorite flavor.  You must stop here if you are in Rome just to see how big it is!

That night we hung out in Piazza Navona (right near where Campo De’ Fiori, the farmers market area, was that we went to earlier). There are tons of cute restaurants that line the rectangular square with adorable patios.  We checked out the menus at a bunch and they all looked great! There are also lots of fun street performers in the square at night and we loved watching them!

The next day was our Colosseum and Roman Forum Tour. I would definitely recommend going with a tour versus just buying a “skip the line ticket” because it is a much shorter line.  There are essentially three lines: a general admission line, a “skip the line” ticket line, and a guided tour line.  The guided tour line is by far the quickest and because the lines are in the sun it is so hot!  Our tour lasted about 3-4 hours and included both the Colosseum and Roman Forum.  I would definitely recommend it!  We booked it through Viator.

After the Colosseum tour, we headed to the Mamertime Prison to tour the underground cell where Peter and Paul were kept prisoner from the Bible.  It was definitely crazy to see, and I am so glad we checked it out, but I really wish they offered a guided tour because I feel like you could learn so much more than just seeing it.

That afternoon we went back to the shopping district and strolled through because we were pretty tired from the tours in the morning. We had dinner at the cutest little restaurant in an alley near Piazza Navona.  I can’t find it online, but it was fun to just walk around and pick a cute spot in an alley, so I recommend dong that if you visit Rome!

The next morning was our Vatican tour, which was very interesting to see but a little long for my taste.  It was about 3 hours, but after about 2, Daniel and I walked through the Sistine Chapel and headed out.  If you are going to tour the Vatican, make sure to cover your knees and shoulders!  I didn’t know to do that and had to buy a little scarf outside the Vatican to wrap around my knees.

After lunch we had a Vespa tour scheduled as our final excursion in Rome, and it was our favorite thing we did!!!  We booked a three-hour tour through Scooteroma, and it was well worth every penny!  You must do this if you are in Rome because the locals give the tour and you get to see so much on a Scooter that you can’t see on foot or by car.

The next morning, we woke up early and took an Uber to the airport to head home!  We had an absolute blast in every single place we stayed in Italy, and Rome was no exception!!!

If you are heading there and have any questions at all, feel free to email me!  I am no expert, but I would love to help you out in any way I can!

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