Last modified 01/27/2024

Travel and tourist tips for Rome, Italy :

Unlike many tourist destinations, we have heard of Rome since we were students, when our history and religion teachers told us about the Roman Empire and the origins of Christianity. Therefore, visiting it today no longer means knowing it but recognizing it.

There are many tourist resources to visit in Rome. The main one is the Roman Coliseum, setting to gladiator armed battles, so often remembered on films with plots set on the Roman empire; and the Vatican, where the Pope, visible head of Christianity, is. We must not forget that in Rome we will also find art museums, home to paintings from Michelangelo, Raphael and Tiziano, among others. The Sistine Chapel is in the Vatican.

People from inside Europe can arrive into Rome by train, via Ferrovie dello Stato, a company with headquarters in downtown Rome (Roma Termini station). It connects Rome with Paris, Florence and Milan. Trains coming from Madrid arrive into Milan, and passengers must change to a high speed train which takes them to Rome in about four hours.
Tickets can be bought online at www.fs-on-line.com using any of the credit cards mentioned on their web page.

A faster option for Europeans is a cheap flight from their city to Rome. Using web pages like www.despegar.com and www.liligo.es they can search, book and buy cheap tickets. Given the short distances, they sacrifice comfort for price. On the Madrid-Rome route, ticket prices fluctuate from 31 euros on a flexible date to 88 euros on a fixed date, on low cost airlines such as Ryan Air, EasyJet and Vueling. This makes an enormous difference with traditional airlines like Iberia, which charges 614 euros on a fixed date.

There are no low cost flights from Latin America to Europe. There are just the traditional airlines, and their ticket prices are various. Therefore, to find the cheapest tickets you must go to the Internet and visit websites like www.ryanair.com, where you can search for low priced tickets with low demand schedules.

The next task is choosing the hotel, and you also go to the www.hotels.com website to search, book and hire lodging, according to what you can afford. You can also visit www.edreams.com, www.destinia.com, www.hotelesbaratos.com and www.hoteles.com.

Once in Rome, you must take into account that you must pay a ticket to visit many tourist spots; otherwise, you must buy tourist cards with prices varying between 6 and 27 euros. You must go to the local tourism office, where you will learn about costs, benefits and discounts you are entitled to.

On your first day in Rome, you must visit the Roman Coliseum: it has time significance; the experiences there are simply fantastic. To get there, you can take the metro, and one of its stations is called precisely “Colosseo”. A ticket for the coliseum has a price between 10 and 20 euros; this also includes entrance to the Palatino.

On your second day you must visit the squares. To do that, you must hire the tourist services of the roofless buses that leave Termini station every 20 minutes all year round, with a defined route.

On your third day, go to Vatican City to visit Saint Peter’s Square. Nearby you can find Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel.