This has been a special year for my family as my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary and my dad turned 70. While that sounds like a formula for misadventure, it ended up being one of the best vacations we’ve taken as a family, filled with food, laughter, wine and fun!
Since it turned out to be such an amazing trip, I’m sharing a semi-travelogue with tips and suggestions if you are planning on a family vacation to Rome.
Step 1: Accommodation
When you are traveling with a group as big as ours, and trying to stick to a budget, Airbnb has the best options. I spent an entire day researching Rome’s various neighbourhoods and zeroed in on Trastevere. I found a great 2-bed room apartment with enough beds to sleep 7 people, conveniently located 5 mins from the Trastevere metro station, with a supermarket across the street and various cafes and restaurants in the vicinity.
When you are traveling in a large group, a fully stocked apartment works out to be the most affordable. The supermarket was a lifesaver as we stocked up groceries for the entire week as soon as we arrived. My mother and mother-in-law brought various Indian spices and pre-made mixes that we could use to prepare simple meals with locally bought groceries. MIL even carried a little pressure cooker to make rice! (When I emailed the host of the Airbnb apartment to ask if they had a rice cooker, the guy’s puzzled response was – ‘What’s a rice cooker? In Italy we cook rice in a pot!’)
Step 2: Itinerary
Rome is one giant museum. Everywhere you look, you are sure to find ruins of some kind. With its rich (and violent) history, there is something for everyone – palaces, churches, ancient Roman temples, museums, art, sculpture, food, shopping, sights…the choices are endless.
I was given the responsibility of putting together an itinerary that would allow us to maximise the week. After going through a combination of Google, TripAdvisor and conversations with others who have been to Rome, I decided our trip should include visits to Florence and Pisa. I put together a plan, which worked out great for us, and I would recommend to anyone planning a week’s holiday in Rome and wants to see surrounding areas.
Here’s my recommended itinerary for your Roman Holiday.
Day 1 – Rome
Day 2 – Vatican & other neighbourhoods in Rome
Day 3 & 4 – Florence
Day 5 – Pisa
Day 6 – Rome
Step 3: Sights
As an avid traveler, the one trick I use to get a feel of the city is to take a walking tour with a local guide. When you are faced with overwhelming choices and do not have the patience to research your top picks, sign up for a free walking tour. All major cities offer walking tours (free and paid). The free tours are led often by students and other passionate locals who make substantial tips from these tours and are happy to share a piece of their city with visitors.
When I travel on my own or with my husband, my first choice is a free tour, where you join other tourists and take a 3-4 hour walk around the city at a comfortable pace, checking out the major landmarks and listening to the guide tell stories about them. The tip varies from 10-20 Euros depending on how good your guide is.
Given the size of my group and the senior citizens involved, I decided the free tour wouldn’t work for us in Rome and decided to book a paid private tour instead.
TripAdvisor came to the rescue again and I zeroed in on Walking Tours of Rome with Lara. (WTRL)
WTRL offers some fantastic options with carefully curated sights. We chose a walking tour of Downtown Rome, which includes a 3-hour stroll through the cobblestoned back streets of the historic centre of ancient Rome for our first day.
On the second day, we went on the Vatican Tour, which includes a tour of the Vatican Museums, St.Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.
I would have liked to go on the Best of Rome tour, which covers all the major sights of this historic city in one day, but takes around 8 hours to complete. Since my group included 4 people over the age of 60, I realized an 8-hour walking tour was simply not going to work.
We visited Rome in the end of November, just as the weather gets cooler and the rains start to make an appearance. Luckily, the rains didn’t disrupt our holiday too much, except on one day, most of which we spent inside the Vatican Museums.
There’s so much to see in Rome and simply not enough time or days. Based on everything that I saw, here are my top 4 picks in Rome:
1) Coliseum
The magnificent ancient Roman amphitheater is truly an architectural wonder. Completed in 80 AD under the Flavian dynasty, the Coliseum in its heydays could hold up to 80,000 spectators. Remember those Gladiator contests from the Russell Crowe movie? Those things used to take place in this very Coliseum. The ancient Romans also used it for other forms of entertainment including theatrical performances and public executions! It went out of use in the early medieval era (at least for entertainment purposes) and fell into ruin over the centuries from damage caused by earthquakes and stone-robbers.
Despite being thousands of years old and in ruins, the Coliseum is certainly one of the most iconic symbols of ancient imperial Rome. A €25 million restoration of the Coliseum is underway and we saw tarps covering construction sites in various parts of the amphitheater.
2) Vatican City
Everyone knows this today as the seat of Pope Francis and the Catholic Church, as well as the smallest independent city-state in the world. But not many are aware, that at the time of the Roman Republic, the Vatican was an uninhabited marsh on the west bank of the Tiber river across the city of Rome. Interestingly, long before the arrival of Christianity, the area was considered sacred and a shrine dedicated to the Phrygian Goddess Cybele was present there and in use, even while Emperor Constantin built the original St.Peter’s Basilica nearby.
Our guide Linda from WTRL is by far the most amazing tour guide I have come across. She is a brilliant storyteller and has this wonderful animated way of describing events and people from a bygone era. Whether she is talking about how Michelangelo came to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or describing the significance of a painting or a statue, you feel like she was there when it happened and she is relaying a first-hand account of events, complete with hand gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice!
Traveller Tips:
a)The Vatican Museums are HUGE. If you don’t want to get stuck standing in a long queue, buy the tickets online for the date and time of visit and save yourself and everyone time and energy.
b) You’ll be lost and confused without a guide. The Vatican does offer audio guides to help you figure out what you are looking at, but there is SO MUCH to look at, it is pretty much impossible to know what should take priority.
Thanks to Linda, who had a clear agenda and took us decisively through the museums from sculptures to paintings, stopping at all the important ones, and explaining the story behind them, we managed to see all the major highlights. Even then it took us nearly 3 hours and according to Linda, the equivalent of 4KM of walking.
c) You are not allowed to speak or take pictures inside the Sistine Chapel. The guards are constantly reminding you of that and will physically stop you from taking pictures if they catch you. It is a sacred place and one deserving of appropriate respect.
We were awestruck by the beauty of Michelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling. Linda told us the interesting story of how Michelangelo came to paint the ceiling. Apparently he never considered himself a good painter. His first love was sculpture and that’s what he focused his time and efforts on. When Pope Julius II invited him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he is supposed to have balked. But, one doesn’t turn down a request from the Pope, however celebrated an artist, and Michelangelo reluctantly accepted the commission. He spent the next 4 years of his life perched on scaffolding creating the masterpiece that he has come to be so closely identified with. The irony is that he was so miserable during the project and the physical toll it took on him, he even wrote a poem about it and concluded – “I am not in the right place; I am not a painter.”
3) Trevi Fountain and its surrounding area
The Trevi Fountain has made an appearance in a number of movies, the most iconic and earliest is, of course, Roman Holiday. Legend has it that a young girl led thirsty Roman soldiers 13km from the city of Rome to a source of pure water back in 19 BC. This discovery led to the construction of an aqueduct, which served Rome for over 400 years! Today, tourists come from all over the world and throw coins into the Fountain, which is supposed to help them return to Rome in the future.
More than 3000 Euros are collected in the fountain every day and the city uses it to support a supermarket for the poor and needy. The fountain had just reopened a few weeks before our visit, after being closed for more than a year for restoration. The crowds made it pretty much impossible to get a proper photograph with the entire, dramatic structure of the fountain. Those little dark blobs in the photo above are coins at the floor of the fountain.
I personally enjoyed strolling through the Trevi neighborhood with its narrow, cobblestoned alleys and beautiful old buildings. Once you are tired of the tourists around the Trevi Fountain, head a few blocks away to the Palazzo del Quirinale and the piazza near it. The wide, open space with a view is a relief from the crowds, and the palazzo is beautiful. Admire the guards as they go about their business in spiffy uniforms.
Traveller Tip: In all the major tourist areas you will find people dressed in costumes, offering to take photos with you for a fee. If you try to take their picture surreptitiously, they get really upset, especially the painted characters. The most common costumed fellas are the gladiators, dressed in full gear including helmet and sword. The husband and I decided to get a picture with them and after we got our photos, they demanded 20 Euro per person. We were taken aback….we thought it was 20 for our pictures together. We don’t speak any Italian and these were big guys, we decided to let it go and not get into an argument. A minute later, we told our guide Laura who had been busy answering some questions for my parents and had missed this encounter. Laura got visibly furious and demanded to know which ‘gladiators’ had pulled the con on us. Pint-sized Laura walked to them and let loose a stream of Italian, at the end of which, the guys returned one 20 Euro note to her!
4) Piazza di Campidoglio
Designed by Michaelangelo, this beautiful square is laid out between two summits of the Capitoline Hill, the most important of Rome’s fabled seven hills.
We went there on a cold, rainy, windy day, which also was our last full day in Rome. The location was suggested by a professional photographer I hired to take group pictures of the family. Given the rarity of all of us coming together in one place after a really long time, I wanted to make sure we got some good professional shots taken of the family.
Since it was our last day in Rome, the rain and the wind were not going to stop us from getting out and maximizing our limited time.
Emperor Charles V was planning to visit Rome and the Capitoline Hill was in a derelict state. Pope Paul III asked Michelangelo to design a new square fit to receive the Emperor.
Michelangelo created an ambitious plan, which included the Cordonate, the grandiose, slow rising staircase that leads from the bottom of the Capitoline Hill to the piazza, and redesign of the existing buildings around the square. Construction of the square started in 1546, but only the staircase at the entrance of the Palazzo Senatorio was realized when Michelangelo died in 1564.
Must see: The statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the Capitoline Museum.
Local Transport
I recommend taking the metro rail, which is super easy and cheap. If you are in a group and have older people who may find it difficult to navigate through the metro system, Uber offers a Van option (for big groups) as well as a Uber Tour option, which is basically a two and a half hour, 100 Euro scenic car ride through the city.
We didn’t experience the UberTour, but we did take the Uber Van on most days, simply because it was convenient in the near freezing, cold weather. Pricier, but when you have decided to invest in having a good trip and making sure everyone is comfortable and not stressed out with logistics, those few extra euros are totally worth it.
We did take the metro train back from the Coliseum one day since the station was right across the road and it was pretty easy. Trams and buses are the other popular mode of affordable local transport.
Inter-city travel
Domenico and Laura, our Airbnb hosts were amazingly informative and provided us with train schedules and recommendations. The fast train from Rome central to Florence takes about an hour and 30 minutes and there’s one every few hours. The regular train takes around 3 hours.
We were able to book tickets online for the fast train for the next day through the Italia Rail website. Trains that begin with the word ‘frecce’ are the fast trains.
From Florence to Pisa, there’s a train every few minutes and takes less than an hour. We booked another charming apartment in the heart of Florence, right by the historic Ponte Vecchio arch bridge that has been around since the medieval ages. We spent a day and a half strolling through the streets of Florence (which requires an entire post dedicated to it) and took the train to Pisa after storing our luggage in the train station’s left luggage locker. That left us free to get to Pisa and back without lugging our things, in the course of one afternoon.
Ideally, a trip to Florence should be combined with a visit to the Tuscan countryside. A number of tour operators offer half and full day tours that start at Florence and go to Siena, Chianti, Pisa and back. Since we had limited time and the tour we wanted didn’t have any open spots for that day, we decided to spend most of our time exploring the streets and museums of Florence and designated a 4 hour round trip to Pisa to just see the Leaning Tower and get back.
A note of caution: Trains in Italy will get delayed. Every single train journey we took between the three cities was delayed by between a few minutes to a few hours! Announcements at the station are only in Italian and it isn’t easy to find information booths.
We had a bit of a misadventure on our way back from Pisa to Florence. We had booked a return trip on the second last train from Florence to Rome, confident that we will be back in Florence with enough time.
Someone jumped on the train track that our train was supposed to take to enter the Firenze Santa Maria Novella station (Central Florence) and the tracks were blocked. Many trains were delayed (except the ones going to Rome, as our luck would have it). We got stuck waiting in the train 10 minutes outside Florence for more than an hour, missed our connecting train and barely made the last train to Rome. By the time we got back to our apartment in Rome that night, everyone was exhausted and travelled out!
Lesson to other tourists in Italy – Don’t plan a timed itinerary of any sort if you plan to travel by the Italian trains!
Food
Everyone in our group, except my sister, is vegetarian. While this has posed a challenge in the past when traveling in Europe, in Italy an abundance of vegetarian options are available (and not just pizzas or Penne Arabiatta!). I highly recommend eating at an authentic Italian Trattoria. These are rustic, family style establishments where old local family recipes are cooked in the kitchen by an elderly Italian woman. Wine is served in a decanter, service is casual, food is delicious and plentiful and you get a taste of the real Italy.
While many restaurants today claim to be running Trattoria style establishments, the genuine Trattorias have dwindled in numbers. We were lucky to eat some terrific Tuscan style vegetarian food in Trattoria Mama Anna (Mama Anna’s Eatery) in Florence, a hole in the wall place near the Pento Vecchio. Mama Anna, a portly Italian grandma spoke all of 3 words in English but served us the most delicious Tuscan family food which included soups, risotto, lasagne, gnocchi and several other dishes I can’t remember now. Because Tuscany is traditionally an agricultural society formed on the foundation of wholesome, delicious produce, a bounty of vegetarian delicacies are on offer.
And it was time to say Ciao…
I’ve barely skimmed the surface of everything we did and saw during this trip. And we only just about touched all the usual touristy spots. There is so much more to Rome and so much more to Italy. A week is honestly not enough. A week just gets your started. To experience Italy, you have to immerse yourself in Italy. And if the legend about the coin throwing is true, I will find myself back there one day.
