How walkable is Rome?

I find Rome very walkable but usually take the metro to the Vatican area and to the EUR area when I want to go to those areas. You can easily gauge the distances by using google maps or something similar and put in your locations. I usually do this when I travel to different cities for the weekends so that I can figure out in advance. Also it depends on the weather.... I opt for the metro or buses if raining or super hot.

Yeah ; google maps will give walking times as well as driving times so easy to figure out from your hotel to each site.
In general everything but the Vatican is walkable for you in my opinion. Trastavere yes as well as any of the sites of ancient Rome.

You can use Google to get distances between attractions. I walked something like 12 hours a day in Rome for three days. I got major blisters but, yes, with the exception of trying to cross the streets with zooming cars/moped (scary!), it was very walkable. If you can walk say 5 miles a day or more, then you'll have no problems.

To me Rome is one of the best of the bigger European cities to walk in. On my last visit to Rome I stayed by Termini and only took the subway to the Vatican. I walked to the colosseum, Spanish steps, pantheon, piazza novona, victor emmanuel monument, Trevi fountain and many, many churches. It's a great city to walk in! Even though some of the distances are a little longer, you can usually find some place to sit and rest and people watch before heading to your next site.

From Via Veneto you can walk easily to Piazza di Spagna, Trevi Fountain and Villa Borghese. The rest of the Centro Storico (Pantheon, Piazza Navona) is a bit more distance but still not too bad. Colosseum and Forum, kind of a walk.
Vatican, Trastevere are a very long walk. Vatican can be easily reached by metro from Barberini station (line A).
For Trastevere I'd take a taxi, otherwise it's a bus (85) to Piazza Venezia, then the tramway (8) to viale di trastevere.

The core of the sites are very walkable because that it what they were doing 2000 years ago. Everything had to be walking distance. You are correct in that the metro is very limited and we never use it unless we want to go outside of the metro area. Buses and trams are far more useful. The is also some small electric shuttles that run in the very central part. We also stay in the Termini area and walk from there. The Vatican is about an hour walk from the Termini area and everything else is in between.

Just returned a few weeks ago. We stayed near Termini and walked to almost all the sights. In fact, we did the Rick Steve's audio "Heart of Rome" walking tour in just a few hours and saw the Campo de Fiori, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Trevi, Spanish Steps among others. We took taxis to the Vatican and to dinner in Trastevere, which were very reasonable--about 10E each way (and sometimes an experience in themselves)!

Rome is a GREAT city to walk so we've very rarely used any sort of public transit: the metro just a couple of times. We've trotted from the Prati area to the Colosseum and back, to Trastevere and back, and a pretty good chunk of the Appia Antica from a further point back into the city and our hotel in Quirinale. But everyone's tolerances are different, and time of year can affect your endurance as well. It's been really hot there this summer so we might not have been able to manage the same treks if there right now.

Your closest metro station, depending on where you are on Via Veneto is Spagna or Barberini, and you could hop on to get over to the Vatican. You could do the same down to the Colosseum, transferring from line A to B at Termini. But if you managed the walk from the Louvre to Arc de Triomphe, I'm sure you can walk to both from your hotel. You might try it one way on foot and use the metro or other form of transport to get home if you're pooped?

My wife and myself were in Rome earlier this year - we stayed a couple of streets away from the Termini Railway station. Like Agnes we walked and walked and walked. No blisters! But we wore 'sensible' shoes! We didn't use the metro, bus or tram once, just did it all on foot, using one of the free street maps that seemingly all the hotels have.

You may not want to walk as far as we did - we went at it fairly leisurely, broke it up with stops for coffee, sightseeing, lunch, beer, photo opportunities, evening meal, etc., as appropriate - but you could walk part way and take public transport the rest of the way. We walked to Trastevere and we're glad we did, we really enjoyed it there. Has the feeling of being less 'touristy' than other parts of Rome. We walked to the Vatican via the Garibaldi monument and the Argentinian lighthouse (really!) where there are great views over the city, although the descent to the Vatican was a bit disjointed, but still pretty obvious.

Rome really is a very walkable city and I'm sure you discover more travelling on foot than by use of public transport, but you may not feel like covering the miles we did. Which ever way you 'attack' it, hope you have a great trip.

If you plan your walks reasonably, no problem. I would take buses over metro (lots of them pass through the Barberini area) so you can see something on the way.

Two thousand years ago, Roma was a smaller city, so ancient sights are relatively close to each other. Expansion over the centuries has spread the tourist itinerary further out from the Forum, so some places might be better served by taking bus or metro. If you plan to visit the Vatican Museums, for example, you might want to save your feet for that and take the bus or metro to get there, rather than walk all the way from Via Veneto.

Thanks so much to all of you! Great advice and good points from everyone!

One further point about walking and location. We always stay in the Termini area because it is the bus transportation hub. We tend to walk from that area earlier in the day to the sites. If we get tired, lost, etc., all we do is look for a bus that says Termini on the front -- a lot if not most of the buses from the central part of Rome go to Termini - hop on the bus and we know will be home without worrying about finding the correct bus number or route.

I found it very walkable. I feel you get so involved with the beauty, history and people, you don't even realize how far you walk. On our first trip, we walked from our hotel near the Vatican to the Colosseum and back, and the receptionist at the desk when we got back was amazed we walked so far. There are plenty of stops you will make along your walk ( pizza,glass of wine, espresso, gift shop, gelato) that will be a rest stop you aren't aware of.

very walkable no hills except the Spanish steps

no hills except the Spanish steps...

...and Gianicolo, Capitoline, Palatine, Aventine, Pincian and a few other hills I could probably think of. :O)

No hills???

Aventino, Capitolino, Celio, Esquilino, Palatino, Quirinale, Viminale. Plus a few others. And lots of stepped streets. But nothing really steep.

Those "hills" will only seem like hills if you are from somewhere very flat. highest point in (near?) Rome is Monte Mario at 139 meters/456 feet above sea level. As it is outside of the main tourist areas, you are unlikely to climb it.

But I believe your question is more about distance.

We walked everywhere when we lived there. The only thing that deterred us was heat or heavy rain. However, in preserving energy for touring, walking all the way to the Vatican from Via V. Veneto is a bit much, especially since the Metro is right there at Barberini. Walk around in Trastevere instead of to it. But Via V. Veneto to Piazza Navona, for example, is a pleasant walk of perhaps 30-40 minutes depending on your speed.

I spent 6 nights in Rome in an apartment near St. Peter's in mid-June. With the exception of a tour on the back of a Vespa, one late Saturday night taxi ride from Trastevere to my apartment and a taxi from my apartment to Roma Termini, I went everywhere on foot or by bus. I used both the ATAC website and Google Maps to plot my routes. I carried a paper Rome map folded up small enough to see the walking route between the final bus stop and my destination.

Fortunately, there was a bus stop about 2 blocks from the apartment where I could buy bus tickets from a kiosk and from which I could get just about anywhere. I agree with the person who said not to waste energy on walking long distances if it will make you too exhausted to enjoy your destination.

I found Google Maps to be the best way to figure out how to get where I wanted to go and how long it would take. I recommend that you experiment with it. Start with where you are staying. Click on directions. Put in your destination. You will get a screen showing car, public transportation and walking. The basic best methods are listed, including the bus numbers to take. Click on Options to select parameters more specific to your needs. Click on Depart at ... to select when you want to go.

As you experiment, you will learn what will be best for you. Sometimes I would look for directions between two locations. Most of the time, using the Wi-Fi at the apartment, I'd start from my location. I didn't have data, so I had to do the research at home and make notes of the buses and times.

Some bits of advice:

1. Get a seat on the right side of the bus facing forward if possible. The signs for the stops are up high and you cannot see them from the left side of the bus. If you stand on the right, you can usually bend down far enough to see them.

2. Get your ticket stamped immediately when you get on.

3. Keep your ticket until you get off.

4. Streets change names frequently. The name change may not be shown on the same side of the street. For example, you may be walking down the street where the name changes. You may need to turn on street Y. When you get to the intersection, you may see the street X sign on the right of the wall across the street. But you can miss street Y because it's marked on the wall to your left before you cross the street, essentially behind you.

5. Some distances are shorter than you expect, so you can walk right by them.

6. And of course, some streets aren't marked at all. That's when you either walk around in ever diminishing circles like you're in a whirlpool or you ask somebody for help.

It's not that Rome's walking distances are particularly long, but those ancient goat trails that became streets can be confusing! I fall into the camp of enjoying walking around IN the sites more than needing to walk cross town TO them. Had my fill of buses years ago as a student, when the pinching was more the issue than the pickpocketing. I still like walking in Rome, but whenever tired, hot, wet, running late, or lost, taxis are my friends. They're reasonable because distances aren't so long, and taxi stands aren't hard to find. (You can't wave down Roman taxis on the street.)