Rome has always been a city on my bucket list and I was so excited to visit for the first time. I absolutely LOVED the city! My husband and I traveled to Italy in June 2022 and it was our first time traveling to Italy so we were so excited to say the least. We spent a total of 2.5 days in Rome, but we could have easily spent few more days. There is so much history in Rome. Every corner is history!
Since it was our first time traveling to Italy, I was overwhelmed with locations and all the hotel options so I worked with a travel agency to book the flights and hotels. I basically provided dates of our travels and cities and they provided me with list of hotels and I googled them and chose the hotels. We absolutely loved our hotel in Rome, it was called River Palace Hotel. We loved everything about this hotel. They were very accommodating to keeping our luggages locked until it was time to check in and this was important to us since we got to Rome early morning. The hotel had a beautiful architecture! The breakfast buffet was probably my favorite thing about this hotel. The location was also great. It was a two minute walk to Piazza Del Popolo and about 15 minute walk to Trevi Fountain.
3-Day Itinerary
Day 1
- We landed in Rome around 7am on June 5, 2022 and we took the taxi to get to our hotel, which was about 45 minute drive. Checked in, changed, and started exploring!
- Walked to Trevi Fountain
- Grabbed some coffee and sandwiches from L’antico Forno di Piazza Trevi
- Walked to Spanish Steps
- For lunch we stopped at a pizza place (unfortunately I don’t remember the name, but to be honest it wasn’t the best pizza)
- Grabbed gelato on our way back to the hotel
- Rested for few hours, before heading out to dinner
- We walked back to Trevi Fountain before deciding on where to eat and it was super busy- this was around 8pm
- Dinner at Baccano- it was AMAZING!
- Gelato #2 of the day after dinner- Gelato Italiano- again delicious gelato!
- Walked back to Trevi Fountain to experience it during night time and it was absolutely beautiful!
Day 2
- Breakfast at the hotel.
- Walked to the Pantheon. Get here before 9am otherwise it gets busy and lines are long. It is a free admission. Just remember to wear something that covers your shoulders otherwise they won’t let you inside. There are people selling scarfs, in case you need one!
- Took the taxi to St. Peter Basilica. We used itTaxi app and we had a great experience. Pantheon to Vatican is about 40 minute walk so you can easily walk, but it was hot and we just didn’t want to walk so taxi was a great option for us.
- St. Peter Basilica is free, again just get there early otherwise lines are LONG! We got there around 10:10am and by 10:30am we were inside.
- St. Peter Basilica Dome- you can get your tickets in advance, but we just got ours while we were there. They have a ticket for elevator and stairs or just the stairs. We did elevator and stairs. If you’re claustrophobic, then maybe you should skip this! Honestly it wasn’t as bad as some people say and the view is worth it, so do it!
- Vatican Museum & Sistine Chapel- if this is your first time in Rome, I highly recommend not skipping this! You can spend hours here, it is absolutely stunning. I had purchased our tickets in advance from Get your Guide.
- Lunch at Pizza Forum al Colosseo. The pizza was AMAZING and you get a view of Colosseum.
- Colosseum-
- I had purchased our tickets online in advance from CoopCulture. Buy your tickets in advance because they do sell out quickly. We had the full access ticket with entry to arena. They also have tickets that are guided and you have access to underground.
- Back to hotel!
Day 3
- Breakfast at the hotel. They seriously had the best cappuccino and pastries for breakfast!
- Walked to Trevi Fountain for one last time before leaving Rome.
- Coffee #2 of the day at L’antico Forno di Piazza Trevi. This time we sat outside and had Trevi Fountain as our view, which was nice. It was early morning so it wasn’t busy.
- Took the taxi to Roma Termini to take the train to Napoli Centrale. I purchased the tickets online from Italia Rail. The train was high speed and it was an hour and 15 minute. It was a great experience and I would highly recommend this over taking a private ride, because it is cheaper and fast!
- I had private transfer booked in advance with company called Transferelax. I contacted few companies and this was cheaper and had good reviews, so highly recommend. After about an hour, we got to our hotel in Sorrento.
Some things to remember when visiting Rome:
- Wear comfortable shoes, because you’ll be walking a lot! Definitely no heels!
- Wear sunscreen if you’re visiting during summer time.
- Bring a reusable water bottle, because there are water fountains everywhere. There is even an app called WeTap that will show you the locations of the water fountains near you!
- Don’t look like a tourist! There are a lot of people that will try to sell you items, just ignore them! People will offer to take your picture, don’t do it! We had one guy who had a camera that was trying to take our picture, we said no then he offered to take our picture with our own phone and we said okay but he wouldn’t give our phone back. So just ignore these people!
- Have some change on hand, but not a lot. We used credit cards everywhere, even for Taxi.
Like I mentioned before you can easily spend 3-4 days in Rome. There are few things we didn’t get a chance to explore, but we also did a lot during our 2.5 days there! We saw many Churches while we were walking to different places, tried more gelato than I can count and had the best time. I can’t wait to go back! The one place that I had on my list that we didn’t get a chance to go to was Trastevere. Overall we had a great time!
