Day 1:
We took the FrecciaArgento #9423 train from Venice Santa Lucia station to the Termini station in Rome.
The Termini station also has the Metro station outside the train station. Rome has only two metro lines, Line A (Red) and Line B (Blue).
Our hotel for our stay in Rome was Holiday Inn Express, San Giovanni which is closest to the Ponte Lungo stop on Line A. We took the Line A metro outside the Termini train station to the Ponte Lungo stop and walked for 10 minutes to get to the hotel.
After checking in and freshening up, we took the metro line A from Ponte Lungo to Spagna. Just outside of the Spagna station is the Spanish Steps, considered to be the widest staircase in Europe. The area was very crowded with people sitting on the steps. Also there was some construction going on in front of the steps.
After people watching for about half an hour we started walking towards Piazza Navona. We passed by streets paved with cobblestones and beautiful fountains in different squares. There is a lot of history in this city.
Piazza Navona is this huge courtyard surrounded by buildings. There are 3 big fountains symmetrically placed along the length of the square. There were a lot of tourists along with street musicians, toy vendors, fake handbag sellers, flower sellers. We took a lot of pictures of these beautiful fountains.
Next stop was The Pantheon – the birthplace of ancient Roman architecture. By the time we reached the Pantheon, it was already dark and we did not get to explore the interior of the structure and had to be satisfied by admiring it just from the front. We sat there for a while as we listened to street musicians play their rendition of some english songs for the tourists !!
After the Pantheon we walked towards one of the most popular tourist traps in the neighborhood, Trevi Fountain. Unfortunately there is extensive renovation going on at the fountain and it was shut off. No water, no fountain – scaffolding galore. Bummer!! I was really looking forward to throw some coins in there. We picked up some paninis at a sandwich shop nearby and also tried some canolis for the first time. After that we took the metro back to the hotel.
Day 2:
The only item on today’s itinerary was the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. We took the metro from Ponte Lungo towards Ottaviano on Metro Line A. Unfortunately there was some accident on the tracks and the metro only went 2 stops and we had to get out of the metro at San Giovanni. There was a bit of chaos outside the station. We asked a traffic cop on how to get to the Vatican and he suggested taking the bus route. After we walked to the closest bus station, we found a huge crowd waiting there. Some buses would come and not even stop because they were already overcrowded and could not fit in any more passengers. We tried to look for cabs but found out that you have to actually order cabs through the phone and a cab would only pick up random passengers if it happened to be passing by the area and hadn’t picked up a fare. Long story short, we stood at the bus stand for about 2.5 hours in hot and humid weather and finally found a bus that was going all the way to the Vatican Museum.
After we reached the Vatican Museum, I was glad I had bought tickets beforehand. The line outside the museum was very long and snaking around for 2 blocks. We joined the ultra-short line of people who already had tickets and within 5 minutes we were inside the museum. I cannot stress it enough – Buy as many tickets before hand for your attractions so you can avoid these long lines. As our beloved Rick Steves says “Treat your vacation time like money!!”. I earned some serious kudos from Karen and my parents when they realized I had saved them about 2 more hours of standing in line by pre-booking the tickets.
The Vatican Museum is huge and involves a lot of walking. I would recommend at a minimum 4 hours for just the museums and 1 more hour for the Sistine Chapel. We spent most of our time at the Egyptian section and the Rafael rooms. I loved the beautiful Rafael paintings on the ceilings.
The Sistine Chapel was amazing. I felt blessed to be so lucky as to see before my eyes the masterpieces of one of the greatest artists mankind has ever known – the one and only Michelangelo. Unfortunately absolutely no photography is allowed inside the Chapel. If you tried to take pictures sneakily and they saw you, they really come after you. The huge room was so crowded you would be rubbing elbows against people. There were chairs in the back by the walls and the best way is to wait for people to get up and sit there and enjoy.
After the Sistine Chapel, we went to the cafeteria, had our lunch and took some much needed rest from all the walking we had been doing. The pricing in the in-house restaurant in the Vatican Museum is actually very reasonable.
Then we walked out of the Vatican Museum and walked towards the St. Peter’s Basilica. I had read in several tour-guides that there was a secret door in the museum that led the visitors directly to the Basilica without walking the long walk outside the museum towards the basilica. We ended up completely missing that secret door and and had to walk outside the museum towards the Basilica. The line outside the Basilica was fairly long but moving quickly. The “fashion police” were turning away some of the ladies who were showing too much leg or arms !! 🙂
Entering the Basilica, we made a beeline for the most famous artwork in this place. Michelangelo’s The Pieta. It truly was an amazing piece of sculpture. After wandering around the St. Peter’s Basilica using Rick Steve’s free audio guide we finally left after about 2 hours.
By this time, the Metro Line A was still not working and so we went to a bus station near Ottaviano metro station to get to Roma Termini bus station. Just as I was trying to get inside a crowded bus, a gentleman dragged me out of the bus by holding my arm and pointed towards my pocket and was shouting in Italian. I had read about the notorious pickpockets of Rome. As soon as I checked my pockets, I realized my wallet was missing. This gentleman pointed towards a crowd by the bus station (to identify the pickpocket) but none of us knew who he was pointing towards. Nevertheless we ran in the general direction he was pointing. My mom suddenly notices my wallet by the street. What had happened is that when that gentleman pointed towards the pickpocket (as he was walking away) he was worried of getting caught and so just threw away the wallet and walked away. We checked the contents and luckily nothing was missing. No cash or credit-card had been stolen. Before I could thank the kind man for helping me out, he had already left in the bus.
After getting back to Termini Bus station, we took the metro from there to Ponte Lungo and retired for the day.
Day 3:
This being our last day in Rome we only had until about 2 pm to finish our sightseeing, we decided we were only going to visit the Colosseum and the Roman Forums. We took the Line A metro from Ponte Lungo to Rome Termini metro station and switched to Line B to Colosseo. The Colosseum is right outside the metro station. By the time we reached there at 10 AM, there was already a pretty long line but we already had purchased our Colosseum tickets online and so were inside in only a few minutes with pre-purchased tickets line. We took the elevator to the top and walked around this historical place. Rick Steves has a pretty good audio guide for Colosseum and listening the stories made the ancient Roman times come alive for us.
After touring the Colosseum we walked towards the Roman Forum entrance. The Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill tickets are all sold in bundle together and so if you do not prepurchase the tickets online before your visit, it would be wise to line up for the Roman Forum first as the line is much shorter there and hence you don’t have to stand long in line when you are trying to visit the Colosseum.
Between the Colosseum and the Roman Forums lies one of the most important architecture of Christian history – The Arch of Constantine.
The Roman Forum used to be the centerpiece of civic life in the Roman times. Needless to say, the amount of history here is overwhelming. One thing I did not care for much was that there is very little signage in the Roman Forums so it would be good to have some kind of audio guide to make the most of this visit.
In some parts of the Roman Forums you can see excavations going on. The Roman Forum is pretty spread out and there are several paths to go to see different architectures. It can take several hours to see it all.
We spent only about 2 hours at the Forums, and then we took the metro back to our hotel. After checking out, we took the FR1 train from Tuscolana train station to Fiumicino airport for our flight to Paris. The fare was only 8 Euro per person so much more economical than the Leonardo Da Vinci Express. For an alternate mode of transportation, one could also take the Terravision bus from Termini Metro to Fiumicino airport.