Two Days in Rome

The third stop on our European honeymoon was Rome, Italy. This was M’s first time in Rome and my second. I was lucky enough to travel to Rome with my family in May 2013. This visit was different though, not only because M and I were on our honeymoon but our hotel was walkable distance to many of the sites we wanted to see (this is a common trend in all of our stays). We saw all of the sites we wanted to see in two full days and our itinerary is below:

We landed in Rome from Paris (blog post here), the flight was about 2 hours. We took a taxi to our hotel which was around 40 minutes. We stayed at Hotel Chapter Roma and the ambiance reminded me a lot of The Hoxton Hotel Chicago. It is a newer hotel and I would recommend it due to the friendly staff, location, cleanliness and ambiance. The bed was hard, their rooftop bar/restaurant was overpriced tacos/margaritas and they have “old school” keys that have a keychain that makes it very heavy. The hotel prefers you leave the hotel key at the front desk when you leave so you do not have to carry around a heavy key–but I carried ours around everytime we left (insert shoulder shrug emoji). After we checked-in to our hotel we walked to dinner at Mariuccia. Great first dinner, we each had a pizza–yes you read that correctly. After, we ate gelato at Frigidarium and it did NOT disappoint. So good! We later went back to the hotel to have a rooftop drink at our hotel, which is very overpriced, do not recommend.

 First Full Day

Our first full day in Rome, we ate breakfast at our hotel (this is a recurring thing throughout the whole honeymoon fyi). We walked to the Vatican after breakfast (~15 min) for our semi-private and skip-the-line tour of the Vatican, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. We booked this prior to our vacation on Viatour. I would 10/10 recommend this as the lines can be very very long. (TIP: You can see the Pope in person at St. Peter’s Square on Wednesdays around 0900 and Sundays at 1200). But again, expect long lines. After the semi-private tour we ate lunch at Scampos and tried my first Aperol spritz. Unpopular opinion: they aren’t that great (insert shoulder shrugging emoji). After, we walked to the Pantheon, free entrance to the inside and we completed the Rick Steves free audio tour. We enjoyed some scoops of gelato at Don Nino near the Trevi Fountain before visiting the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. We walked back to the hotel (~20 mins) and rested before our dinner at Sheva located in the Jewish Ghetto (~5 minutes from our hotel). After dinner we completed the Rick Steves free audio tour of the Jewish Ghetto and ended our night with another couple of scoops of gelato at Bar Gelateria Alberto Pica.

Second Full Day

The second full day, we walked to the colosseum (~30 mins) and enjoyed our semi-private tour of the colosseum, palatine hill and the Roman forum. We ate lunch at Dar Conte Campo De Fiora and went back to our hotel for a nap. All this travel really makes you tired. Anyway, we woke up and walked around for souvenirs and went back to the colosseum for drinks at Ristorante Pizzeria. We sat outside the colosseum to watch for the colosseum lights to turn on (highly recommend, the colosseum is beautiful day and night). We ate more gelato at Romano located in the Jewish Ghetto. 

We woke up the following morning and you guessed it, ate breakfast at the hotel. After we packed our suitcases and had coffee/tea at the hotel to pass time before taxing to the train station (~20 min drive from the hotel). 

Overall, we were very pleased with Rome, Italy and believe our two full days (two half days) were just enough for what we wanted to see in Rome before heading to Florence, Italy. 

Tips I recommend/have for Rome:

1. Try to book semi-private/skip-the-line tours prior to your visit at the popular sites (Vatican and colosseum especially).
2. Bring a water bottle–Rome has clean public water spouts you can fill up for free (otherwise, prepare to pay at least 5 euros for a bottle of water. This includes restaurants). Trust me, visiting in the summer months, you get very thirsty very often which will cost you a pretty penny after a while.
3. Book a hotel walking distance to the popular sites, this will save you money on taxis.
4. Rome, Italy does have stand-up scooters like the ones we rode in Paris, but with the cobblestone roads in Rome it seemed almost impractical. However, we did not try it. Also did not see many people trying it either.
5. Pack good walking shoes, I wore my Vejas and they were excellent. I also saw people wearing Hokas or ON (On Cloud) running shoes.
6. I overall felt very safe in Rome, Italy. There were a lot of tourists when we visited but obvi stay vigilant and keep your belongings close. 

Thanks for reading about our honeymoon stop in Rome, next up on our honeymoon trip is Florence and Tuscany! 

-Don’t forget to follow me at @thedailyallis 

-What are your favorite parts of Rome? Would love to hear your Rome experiences in the comments 🙂

XO