Rome in a week
- Rhoda Phillippo Harrington
- Oct 2
- 7 min read
We arrived into Rome quite late in the evening. Our apartment in Travastere was right in the heart of everything in Piazza di S.Giovanni della Malva and our apartment was called Malva Palace. It is quaint – set over four stories with a laundry on the ground floor, kitchenette on the half landing, living room, main bed and bathroom on the next floor, ensuite bathroom on the floor above and then a rooftop terrace. We quickly unpacked and grabbed some essentials from one of the three little supermarkets and bottle stores that were in the square where our apartment was. The owner who met us gave us several recommendations of nearby restaurants and bars too.
We were up early the next day and walked past the Castel Sant’Angelo and Vatican City walls and into Piazza Navona which was just as I had remembered it. Tim’s first visit to Rome was slightly marred this day by a sore foot so we returned to our rooftop for a sandwich lunch before setting out again for our tour of the Vatican and Sistine Chapel. Little were we to know that this would end up being a historical visit as a week after we left the pope passed away and a new pope was elected. If we had delayed a week we would not have been able to see the Sistine Chapel. We did a Vatican Museums Highlights and Sistine Chapel Tour for 10 people through Trip Advisor – the guide, Paula, was excellent and we felt that we had exactly the right amount of time to see the wonderful museums (parts of them) and look at the Michelangelo paintings on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. Paula was extremely knowledgeable, adding in many amusing stories, and helped us navigate the crowds as it was very busy. After walking back to Trastevere, we stopped at Trastevere Ristorazione for a drink and ended up having a great chacuterie selection.
We started Saturday with coffee at Meccanismo https://www.meccanismoroma.com/ and grabbed a couple of takeaway coffees to accompany our walk to the Trevi Fountain. Wandering in Rome is fun as every street has some ancient monument or artefact tucked away. We got on the City Sight Seeing Hop-on Hop-off Bus at Stop 8 and did a complete circuit, giving Tim’s foot time to recover. We booked our tickets through Get Your Guide and the trip was well worthwhile, providing a good view of all the major sites which we would visit while we were here and giving us a sense of the lay of the land. We alighted at the Spanish Steps which were very busy and laughed at the guard with a whistle trying to stop people sitting on the steps! Then we walked back to Piazza Navona and had a lovely lazy lunch at Osteria Olimpi set on the edge of the square with plenty of opportunity for people watching. https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d26702918-Reviews-Osteria_olimpia-Rome_Lazio.html. The food was great – Tim went for lasagne and I had mussels and sea bream. We wandered back to our apartment and hung out on the rooftop before setting out for a special dinner at Antico Arco https://en.anticoarco.it/ which again had great reviews. Unfortunately what should have been a 20 minute stroll was elongated by my very poor map reading skills and after 45 minutes we ended up in a residential dead end. A taxi ride later took us back to where we should have been and the food didn’t disappoint – cuttlefish and chicken for me, meatballs and beef fillet for Tim.
Our excesses from the day before saw us waking up later (perhaps finally getting onto the right time zone). We had an 11am timeslot for the Colosseum so we again picked up coffee from what has now become our local and walked over to the Colosseum. Again we had a Get Your Guide Colosseum, Forum and Palatine Hill with Audio Guide and this was just the right way to do it as we could guide ourselves around the Colosseum while listening to the audio description of what we were seeing and avoid being caught up in the crowds. The guide was really informative and brought the whole experience to life. We walked across the road choosing to do Palatine Hill next and then the Forum – we felt transported back in time to many centuries ago and the preservation of these three areas is quite something. We stopped on our way back at Locanda del Tempio
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d1897524-Reviews-La_Locanda_Del_Tempio-Rome_Lazio.html which again had good reviews on Trip Advisor and we had a nice lunch there. We wandered around some shops not buying anything but I did get a card for the amazing shoe shop that I found - https://www.giorgiaspagnoletto.it/ and did buy shoes online from her when we returned home. Giorgia is the designer, maker and sales person so I really felt like I knew what I was buying and will do so again. After walking back to Travastere and resting we visited one of the top rated local restaurants and were underwhelmed – the queues suggested that everyone else had read the same reviews that I had, however of all the places we visited this week it was the most disappointing…..maybe I should have read this review first!! https://www.theinfatuation.com/rome/reviews/tonnarello.
The next day turned out to be the highlight of our Rome trip. We had booked a 6 hour ebike trip to the Appian Way, Catacombs and Roman Aqueducts with Top Bike Rentals https://www.topbikerental.com/ and were lucky enough to be in a party with a family from Costa Rica and our fabulous guide Nimo who had spent his prior career as a photographer and as a long term Rome resident knew everything. We set off from the shop and the initial few km’s in Rome were a wee bit scary but we soon got outside the old city wall and onto the Appean Way – it was quite surreal to cycle along this piece of history. Our tour took us to the Catacombe di San Callisto https://www.catacombesancallisto.it/en/index.php which was a real labyrinth of burial sites – the guide for this was incredibly knowledgeable. We cycled through Aqueduct Park and were stunned by the clever engineering from centuries ago. The park covers 4580 hectares and the length of the aqueducts from different time periods is quite amazing. https://www.parcoappiaantica.it/visitare-il-parco/. The other fun feature of the day was the lunch stop at a pizza place that sold pizza slices and charged by weight! After handing back our bikes we walked back to Trastevere via the Mouth of Truth however the queue was too long and we were thirsty so we headed to a bar near our apartment for a drink. There were some very loud ex-pat Brits there getting drunk which was quite amusing! One was a celebrant so we pitied the poor couple that ended up with him taking their special ceremony! Dinner tonight was another Trip Advisor recommendation at La Canonica https://www.lacanonicaristorante.it/en/the-restaurant/ which despite poorer reviews and rating than many others we tried was one of the best – seafood and salad dishes were lovely outside this amazing building with history dating back to 1675.
Today’s adventure was courtesy of the Man in Seat 61 https://www.seat61.com/places-of-interest/day-trip-to-pompeii.htm - I can’t quite remember how I stumbled across this amazing site which documents every possible train journey combination you can take. So we did take a day trip from Rome to Pompeii following his instructions to the letter, and they were spot on. The high speed train to Naples got up to 300kmph! The train from Naples to Pompeii was very busy, noisy and much slower. We grabbed audio guides and wandered around the ancient ruins for a couple of hours. Our favourite building was the House of the Faun where the survival of the mosaic decoration over so many years was quite awe inspiring. The House of the Faun (Italian: Casa del Fauno), constructed in the 2nd century BCE during the Samnite period (180 BCE) was a grand Hellenistic residence that was framed by peristyle in Pompeii, Italy. The historical significance in this impressive estate is found in the many great pieces of art that were well preserved from the ash of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. It is one of the most luxurious aristocratic houses from the Roman Republic, and reflects this period better than most archaeological evidence found even in Rome itself. Our return journey back to Rome went smoothly and we walked back from the Roma Terminal to Trastevere and opted to grab a drink in Dar Poeta https://www.darpoeta.com/en/home-2/. We were really keen to eat something other than pasta and pizza and noticed a small restaurant opposite with an outdoor terrace. This turned out to be the best choice we made the whole time in Rome as we enjoyed amazing food, fabulous service, additional petit fours to finish and the joy of eating outdoors on a clear starry evening,
Our last day in Rome started with a wander around the shops and the huge purchase of a couple of fridge magnets! We had lunch at Pimms Good in Trastevere (disappointing) and then headed off for our tour of St Peters Basilica. We were very lucky as from the next day it would be closed for the run up to the Easter celebrations. We booked this tour through Viator – maximum of 10 people and including the Dome Climb (Touriks). Our guide Lorenzo was first class and this was another highlight of our Rome stay, especially climbing the 551 steps to the Dome, made slightly tricky when a couple were attempting to come down the upstairs as they were not feeling great. The views from the top were magical and it was a fitting way to end our exploration of this amazing city. We saw the changing of the guard outside St Peters and posted cards to the grandkids from the Vatican Post Office! Our last evening was spent with a lovely meal at Osteria Der Belli followed by a gelato!
https://ostepercaso.com/osteria-der-belli/. Our various purchases in Rome would subsequently turn out to be very special as Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, just four days after the end of our visit to this great city.
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