best planning for Rome in 2 days?

Lot of questions.. First, where are you staying? Second, the taxi with a fixed rate of 48euro is you best bet from transit into the city and your hotel. Door to door and convenient.

Not a big fan of sitting in bus after an overnight flight. The rocking of the bus will put you to sleep. Need to plan a little better for dealing with jet lag. Are you sure you can get to the Vatican by 7am? I doubt it unless you are staying next door. A guide for the Colosseum is useful the rest is open ground that you can walk and used a walking guide.

Major sites in Rome can’t be seen very well from a bus. Walking is the best way to access them.
Colosseum, a guided tour is helpful as they can you in easier, away from crowds. Palatine Hill and Roman Forum, easy to do on your own with a good guide book. These will be enough for one day. Your Day 2 is overloaded with biggies that all need more time. I cannot imagine doing this plan of yours on Day 2. We were there late October and all those sites were mobbed.
Taxis have a flat rate from airport to city center of Rome. Take a taxi.
Vatican Museums are a mob scene. Do whatever it takes to make your experience better, hiring guide etc.
Pantheon and Piazza Navona are very near each other as was our hotel. Easy.
How many nights are you spending in the Cinque Terre? Perhaps, if more than Rome, you could switch them. May 1 will not impact the CT like it will Rome. It that your whole itinerary?

Frank: Thank you. We are staying at Hotel Aberdeen, on Via Firenze, near the Termini, as rec'd by Rick. Not sure I can make it to the Vatican by 7 am, but will try. That is also what Rick recommended. I would assume that a taxi can take us there early if need be or a bus.

Suki: Thanks as well. I am counscious that day #2 is packed...so maybe I can lighten the load by transferring the Colesseum on day 1 instead, depending on what time they close. We will spend 2 nights in Cinq Terre at some friends of ours who live there. Then we rent a car and head for Tuscany for 4 nights. After that we head for Civitavecchia for a 10-day cruise from Rome to the Greek Islands and back to Rome. We fly home to Canada at the end.

I have a mini-van transport I can book for us 4 from the airport to our hotel for 70 Euros. I guess that is good, considering that a taxi might be too small to accommodate 4 suitcases. and us.
I welcome any additional comments you may have. Thanks.

The only thing I just learned with the booked van at the airport is that if your plane is delayed, they charge you after the 1st hour wait 30 euros per hour til you show up and want cold cash for payment, no Visa card.

I would absolutely not commit to a form of transportation with such a fee for delayed arrival. I'm not saying it's unreasonable (I don't know their operating procedures), but you flight could be 4 or 5 hours late!

I haven't read the Vatican section of Rick's guide book in decades, so I don't know exactly what he suggests. On this forum, however, I've seen pretty much universal agreement that the best way to manage the Vatican Museums so you're not packed shoulder-to-shoulder is to sign up for one of the tours that gets you inside before the general public. The Vatican offers such tours, and I imagine it is the cheapest option. Dark Rome offers such tours; I think it's mid-priced. Walks of Italy has a Pristine Sistine tour that everyone seems to really like, but it is more expensive.

You obviously cannot do both the Museums and St. Peter's super-early, so you'll have to decide which is more important to you. My comment is that I find it easier to appreciate monumental architecture in crowded conditions than art that is mostly hanging on a wall. (I realize the Sistine Chapel is more about the ceiling.) So I'd opt to do the Museums early and take my chances with the basilica. But your priorities might be different, and I acknowledge that four tickets to an early-access tour of the Museums will not be inexpensive.

I believe there's quite a walk between the Basilica and the Museums, so you'll need to leave an appropriate time gap. One other benefit of a tour of the Museums is that there is (per posts on this forum) a door you can use after the tour to go straight into St. Peter's without walking all the way around. I suspect, though, that you'd probably have to do that right as the tour ends, without spending any extra time in the Museums on your own. They are huge, and the tour surely cannot begin to cover everything.

Hi Evelyne,

Sounds like a wonderful trip. You have already received some good advice, just a few additional ideas:

• For your first day, I would look at getting a taxi from the airport, you will need to ask for a van as 4 people, plus luggage won't fit into a taxi. If you can find a car service that will pick you up and not charge you for wait time, it is more convenient, if a bit more expensive than a taxi, perhaps your hotel can help here.

Also on the first day, since you are arriving at noon, check with your hotel to see if you can get early check-in or if not, can drop your luggage off while you explore. I would suggest that you walk on your first day rather than take a bus tour. A manageable time with jet lag is to visit the Pantheon and save your day 3 for Trevi Fountain and Spanish steps (since you only have until 3:00). Near the Pantheon is a great little enoteca: Entoteca Corsi: http://www.enotecacorsi.com/. Also, there is a fantastic gelato shop, ORIGINI.

For the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine Hill, you can definitely do that on your own. We found it very difficult to tour the Roman Forum on our own (even with the RS guide, but the others were just fine). If you do go on your own, take plenty of water as there are limited options to purchase water if you need to.

As for the Vatican Museum, it is an absolute zoo and while you can tour on your own, even with a guide is not a pleasant experience. I don't know what we would have done without a guide when we went with our group of six. It is crowded and difficult to navigate the crowds. If you tour on your own, make sure you decide in advance what you want to see, where it is located and plan accordingly. One thing that I did like about the Vatican Museum was the post office where you can get a post mark from the Vatican, it was one of my favorite souvenirs.

Enjoy your trip.

Sandy

Hi Evelyne,
My husband and I will be in Rome May 5 to 8. We are also staying at Hotel Aberdeen. You can email them and arrange for an airport pick up. When we booked, they emailed us offering their transport services. This is the last leg of our trip and are flying out of Rome so we booked their hotel to airport transfer service. We booked with Walks of Italy for the Vatican Museum, Sistine chapel and St. Peter's tour as well as their city highlights which include Colosseum, Roman Forum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navon etc. The city highlight tour is almost 5 hours while the Vatican is about 3-3-1/2 hours. You can do it on your own with all the audio guides available, it's a matter of preference. Have a wonderful trip!

Thanks everyone for such great advice! So many choices!! I appreciate it! Now back to the drawing board. So glad I asked!

When you are in the area of the Roman Forum, be sure to go to the top of the Victor Emmanuel Monument for a great view of Rome and the Roman Forum. It will help orient you to Rome and you can see exactly how far many of the sites are from each other. There is an elevator behind Monument that you can take to the top for a small fee. Plaques at the top will tell you what you are looking at. It is well worth the effort.

We stayed at the Hotel Aberdeen when we were in Rome on our RS Best of Italy Tour. It is probably the safest hotel to stay at because it is next to the Ministry of Defense and there was a lot of police there. Some of our tour members had a room on the first floor and could hear the metro at night so I would recommend trying to get a room on the second floor.

Great ideas, thank you!

The Hotel Aberdeen is on Metro Line A which will take you to the Vatican. Get on at the Repubblica stop and get off at either Ottaviano or Cipro.

For what may be the best gelato in Rome, check out Old Bridge, which is across the street from where people line up to get into the Vatican Museum.

Do you know if I can be at the Vatican by 7 am sharp using the metro?
I would like to book a tour with Walks of Italy as suggested prior that would start at 7:15 am ( early entrance).
Thanks for the suggestion.

You might have to wait a few minutes for a larger taxi at FCO, but they are there.

Do not take a bus tour in Rome. This is a pedestrian city, and busses can't go to many locations. Concentrate on getting to your hotel, dropping your luggage, if your rooms not ready, having a bite to eat then just walking around. If you can stay up late enough, do Ricks "Heart of Rome walk". Have dinner and head to bed.

Day 2 The Vatican Museum and St Peter's.

Day 3. Do the earliest tour of the Colosseum/Forum you can get. Your hotel will hold your luggage until you depart for the train station.

We are going to be in Rome at the end of May for a similar time frame and similar plan - I know a lot of people will say it is too much to pack in that time frame - but only you know what kind of traveler you are and we have based our plan around what we have been able to do and tolerate on past trips in other cities/countries. What works for you won't work for someone else - so follow your gut and do what you want to.

That being said....we are using Walks Of Italy to see the Vatican and Colosseum in one day - the Pristine Sistine in the morning and the VIP Underground at Colosseum. We have never really done tours before like this but figure it was the best way to be able to see both sites and avoid crowds/lines in one day.

We had planned to use Leonardo Express to get into the city and then walk the approximate 15 minutes to our hotel, but based on these comments I'm considering sucking it up and paying the extra to get a taxi.

To Gerri: Thanks for your input. I like the day 1 you describe...but all is closed on day 3 being Labor Day, so I will have to think of squeezing some of day 3 into day 1 possibly and day 2 as well.
To nettieplee: I agree with you. I have a lot of endurance and motivation when I want to do or see something badly enough.I can relax later. We do have a bigger time constraint with Labor Day as day # 3. Now, I am leaning towards doing the Walks of Italy with the Early entrance to the Vatican ( before the crowds) and the rest ( Colesseum, etc) either on our own or with another tour of theirs if they have one in the afternoon .
Thanks for the ideas!

We took a taxi from the airport with our family of four. No need to prebook. Go to the official taxi stands. It was no big deal. Only take a white taxi. I believe it is 48 Euros set fee in the city center.

Your hotel can call a taxi which is what I would suggest for a 7 am start at the Vatican. I wouldn’t do everything you have on day two but sounds like you have no choice

. We like having guides for these places which is why we do the Rick Steves tours. You might want to check out the 2018 Rick Steves scrapbooks there are quite a few that show Rome including the Rome in a week & the other tours that include Rome. Can give you some insight on what to see. Enjoy

Hi SA,
When you talk about the RS Tours...do you mean the downloaded commented self-guided tours form Rick?
Thanks.

We did the Walks of Italy Pristine Sistine tour. It gets you to the Sistine Chapel when it is just filling up and you stay there for quite a while. The rest of the museum wasn’t really that interesting to me.

We did the colosseum tour the day before. Two tours in one day would have been too much walking for my wife.

While I don't usually recommend this, on arrival day, book a tour of the Colosseum for around 4 pm. This would allow you to get to the hotel, have lunch and get to the site. You'll be outside walking around, which should help. While you may be lacking some comprehension due to jet lag, your next day with the Vatican in the morning will give you time to see a few more sites or churches. Do the Heart of Rome walk this evening while everything is illuminated.

The next day visit Trastevere until your departure.

Frankly, with the Chinque Terre next you'll have some time for relaxing.

The Rome Metro starts running at 5:30 AM. When you enter the Repubblica station be sure to take the train in the direction of the Ottaviano or Cipro stops when heading to Vatican City.

Also, on our first visit to Rome, we got disoriented a few times because we were trying orient ourselves to the Tiber River. This river winds like a serpent through the city, so you can never be sure what compass direction you are actually facing as you approach the river.

Hi OP no I mean the actual Rick Steves company quided tours. I know you aren’t taking one but on this website look up 2018 submissions to his tour scrapbook contest. There are quite a few Italy ones that include Rome. You can see what others did and might give you some insight. Enjoy