City Break Rome NL DE

Rome, from the Forum Romanum to Ostia Antica

Although The Wide World visited the Italian capital Rome many times, it always proves difficult to say goodbye to The Holy City. There aren't many cities in the world where there's so much to be seen in such a compact area. And with all the low cost airlines nowadays it's certainly not expensive to fly to Rome for a rewarding weekend trip.

Rome is packed with monuments, but you will also find village-like alleys with intimate trattorie, marvellous panorama's, spacious parks with Mediterranean flora and interesting surroundings in the Lazio countryside just outside the city. And furthermore there's the delightful climate in spring and autumn, the luxury shops with Italian design goods, the excellent cuisine, from pizza to ossobucco, and maybe the biggest attraction of all: the Romans themselves...

Forum Romanum

The Colosseum and the Forum Romanum are of course well known as silent witnesses of the glorious past of the Roman Empire. but there's more, from vast complexes like the Thermae of Caracalla to a toppled column with a crumbling wall on a street corner. Admittance to the Forum Romanum is free nowadays, and it's always nice to stroll around between the ruins, although it can be very busy with tour groups. Mass tourism has taken its toll: the courtyard of the Vestal Virgins is fenced off and you really have to strech your neck to catch a glimpse of the famous statues. There's a beautiful view of the Forum from the Palazzo dei Conservatori, which belongs to the Capitoline Museums.

Capitoline Museums

A visit to the Capitoline Museums is very rewarding, especially after the recent renovations. It is the oldest public museum in the world and enjoys great fame thanks to the collection of antique statues, including many busts of Roman emperors, the bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius on a horseback and the spinario, a strikingly realistic statue of a boy who removes a thorn from his foot.

Ostia Antica

A day trip to the excavated city of Pompeii is just too far from Rome (you really need a whole day in Pompeii), but Ostia Antica is a good alternative if you want to see an antique Roman city, although the ruins and paintings aren't quite so spectacular as Pompeii or Herculaneum. Ostia can be reached by underground and city train within half an hour. It's amazing how many buildings still stand upright; there are even some apartment buildings of three or more floors.
Sculptures in Ostia Antica Ostia was the port of the antique city of Rome, but nowadays it is several kilometres inland. The city slowly lost its significance when the harbour got silted up, and a malaria epidemic in the 4th century marked the definitive end of the city. In Ostia Antica it's usually very quiet, contrary to Pompeii where hordes of tourists make it difficult to enter the sights. The train to Ostia Antica contiues to the coast, but the seaside resort of Ostia is very ugly and the beach isn't much better.

Vatican Museums

A visit to the Vatican Museums is a unique experience, not only because of all the assembled art treasures, but also because of the sheer number of visitors that is driven through the rooms every day. The queue of tourists along the Vatican walls can be depressingly long. There are a few remedies: visit Rome in the low season or plan your visit at the end of the morning. Another tactic is to queue as early as possible and to head directly for the Sistine Chapel once you are in the museum, a 20-30 minute walk. There's a good chance you can admire the unique Michelangelo frescos in relative stillness. It will be an entirely different experience, compared to being in the chapel with literally hundreds of other visitors, many of them whispering, talking aloud or taking pictures, a pandemonium regularly interrupted by attendants yelling 'Silenzio!' and 'No pictures!'. If you can't stand the buzz and the crowds anymore, head for the Etruscan Museum, which is very rewarding and usually very quiet.

St-Pieterskerk

Vanaf de koepel van de St.-Pieterskerk heb je een uniek uitzicht over Rome en het St.-Pietersplein met daarachter de Via della Conciliazione, de boulevard die na het verdrag van Lateranen dat Mussolini in 1929 met paus Pius XI sloot, werd aangelegd om Rome op passende wijze met het Vaticaan te verbinden.
Tip: Zeer de moeite waard is een bezoek aan de opgravingen onder de St.-Pieterskerk, waar het graf van Petrus zou liggen. Tickets zijn slechts beperkt verkrijgbaar en moeten lang tevoren aangevraagd worden bij het excavations office.

Frascati

It's very easy to escape the busy city and visit the surrounding countryside. Just take the train from Termini station to Frascati, a village surrounded by vineyards in the Colli Albani. The journey takes only half an hour. From Frascati you can walk in an our or so to Tuscolo, Roman excavations high on a hill where Cicero once had a villa. There are beautiful views over the surrounding hills. When you're back in Frascati, you can enjoy the refreshing white Frascati, the wine that is consumed in Rome since ancient times. Order a carafe right from the barrel with a plate of antipasti, like peperoni in olive oil, dry sausage or artichoke hearts in one of the many wine cellars before heading back to Rome.

Centrale Montemartini

A must for lovers of antique sculpture and industrial archaeology is the Centrale Montemartini, a building in a rather uninteresting suburb of Rome. Once it was the first electricity plant of Rome (1912), which was closed in 1963. Since 1997 a number of statues from the collection of the Capitoline Museums are on display here. The antique sculptures harmonize in a strange way in the big museum hall, where two giant diesel engines and a steam turbine are the showpieces. The other rooms present an overview of the development of the city of Rome through the ages. Combination tickets with the Capitoline Museums are available.

Villa Hadriana, Tivoli

A few kilometres outside Tivoli, a small town in the foothills of the Alban Mountains (Colli Albani), there's the Villa Hadriana, an extensive palace complex built in the 2nd century AD by the emperor Hadrian as a residence for himself and his court. It's very relaxing to wander around the partly well preserved buildings, the original function of which isn't always clear. The gardens around the buildings are well suited for a picnic in the shadow of the pine trees. The villa can be reached by bus from Rome in about an hour; ask the driver for the stop for "Villa Adriana". It's a walk of about 1 km from the bus stop.
A visit to the Villa Hadriana can easily be combined with a visit to Tivoli's other big attraction, the Villa d'Este, amazing renaissance gardens with fountains everywhere right in the city centre. The gardens are about 4 km from the Villa Hadriana (walk back to the main road and take any bus for the last few kilometres to Tivoli).

Subiaco

Zo'n 30 km ten oosten van Tivoli ligt het stadje Subiaco, omringd door flinke bergen waar 's winters geskied wordt. Even buiten Subiaco ligt tegen een helling het klooster van St.-Benedictus, waar de grondlegger van het kloosterleven als jongeman drie jaar lang heeft verbleven in de Sacro Speco, de heilige spelonk. In het kloostercomplex zijn fraaie schilderingen bewaard gebleven. De omgeving van het klooster leent zich voor mooie wandelingen, ver weg van de drukte van Rome.

Rome -- Practical Information

Transport

Flights: Wegolo offers an easy and fast booking facility for low cost flights from all over Europe to Rome. It's very flexible because you can combine different airlines for outbound and inbound flights and choose the optimum airports. The resulting fares are all-in, including taxes and credit card costs, plus there's a moderate fee per ticket for the Wegolo services. Book now the cheapest Low Budget tickets across Europe
Transport in Rome: Underground and bus services are relatively cheap. The two metro lines aren't very practical, except for a visit to the Colosseum, Ostia Antica or the church of San Paolo fuori le Mura so you will probably use the buses a lot, although many attractions in the city centre can be visited on foot just as easily.

Accommodation

Hotels in Rome aren't cheap and rooms usually are small. You should book a hotel well ahead, because accommodation fills up quickly throughout the year, and a hunt for a room with all your luggage in the city centre is no fun at all.

Venere.com offers many hotels, B&B's and apartments in Rome. In 80% of cases, Venere's rates result as being the most economic on the Internet. You can read the comments of those who have already been in the hotels; you can check availability and prices, and book your room without advanced payments:

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Food and Drink

pizza napoletana The choice of restaurants in Rome is bewildering, from simple pizzeria's to luxurious establishments. Outdoor cafes are very expensive, especially in touristy areas, but drinking an espresso or cappuccino standing at the bar, like the Romans do, is rather cheap. A piece of pizza from the baking tray (pizza al taglio) makes an excellent lunch, or you can order a filled sandwich in any grocery (alimentari).
It's difficult to find a supermarket or grocery in the city centre; one of the few is in the basement of Stazione Termini.
In many restaurants you can order a carafe of cashed whine (vino sfuzo), usually white whine from the Alban Hills, which is considerably cheaper than a bottle and also of less quality, but thirst-quenching anyway. Italians strongly believe a meal can't be enjoyed without water (acqua minerale), carbonated (gassata) or still (naturale). Pizza is usually accompanied by draught beer and oddly also increasingly by big bottles of Coca Cola.