Looking for Something unique "to do" in Rome

Here is the Gladiator School:

https://www.viator.com/tours/Rome/Roman-Gladiator-School-Learn-How-to-Become-a-Gladiator/d511-2466GLAD?pref=02
or
http://www.gruppostoricoromano.it/en/activities-and-shows/gladiator-for-a-day/

Heres one (thios looks pretty cool):

http://www.dinnerinthesky.it/en/

You could always bring along several cheap wallets and walk around to see how may times your pocket is picked!

go for a train ride and get some porchetta

OMG....
"get some cheap wallets and see how many times we get pick pocket'd".

That is freaking awesome! Now were talking! Great responses!

I can see, plopping down in a Piazza, having some drinks and then just heading out and doing this. Bring some clothes and such to totally make myself look like a massive tourist target. Put monopoly money in the cheap wallet with a pic of me flipping them off....How fun is THAT!

Spending several days in Rome....

Knowing exactly how many days you have is sort of important as with only 2-3 days, you'll be plenty busy enough just getting to "seeing all the stuff everyone lists"!

My fave day is walking Via Appia Antica but that can eat up most of a day depending on how much of it you do and how much you stop to see along the way. :O)

You could always bring along several cheap wallets and walk around to
see how may times your pocket is picked!

ROFLMAO, Christi!

I would eat, drink and pray.

Find a local spot eat and drink hang outside and watch the Romans go by. Go into every little and big 😀 Church that you encounter....they are the soul of Rome.

San Luigi dei Francesi has amazing Carrivaggio works!

Interesting question. My first thought was walk, walk, walk.

Assuming that you haven't been to Rome before, many of the things you may be classifying as "see/take pics of," I might classify as "doing something." And I'd expect something like chariot racing or gladiator fighting to be truly touristy performances. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it might not be exactly what you want.

I'll be in Rome for the 4th time next month. I learned a lot from this backstreets video and have based much of my own see/do on it.

I'm going to do some foodie stuff for the first time. This Sunday tour was inspired by that video. These tours cover a lot of history as well as food.

From this forum I learned about having dinner with a smallish group of people. So I'm going to do that one night with Federica and Barbara. That should be a great experience.

I'm sure you will find lots to do in Rome. For me, a major part of "doing" in any place I visit is simply "being" there.

If you like to take photos and have not been to the top of marco vittorio monument rome, I would recommend taking the elevator to the top for great 360 degree view of Rome. The monument is across the street from Colosseum, Forum area and you can stay up there as long as you like. There are several signs to help identify what you are looking at. I really liked this and took tons of photos.

Take the Tiber Boat trip to Ostia Antica.

Rome, as a city, is a pretty unique place without having to do something like chariot racing or gladiator fighting, which would be unique to yourself, but are tourist activities that many people have done (though I'm not one of them). Most of my suggestions are of the "things to see" variety, because that's why I go to Rome. But it might give you ideas for yourself.

I've been to Rome a handful of times, and there are still places that I haven't been to, that i still have on my list for the next trip. So I'm pretty sure you won't have seen ALL the stuff everyone lists. Looks like Nero's Golden House (Domus Aurea) is open again; if you haven't already planned to go there, it's worth your time (if you like ancient Roman history). We visited right after it first opened; it sounds like it's more developed (or cleaned out) than when we went.

Something I did in Paris that was very meaningful to me was to go to the location of a favorite painting of mine, Caillebotte's "Paris Rainy Day." Do you have a favorite artist that painted in Rome? You could try the same. Or if a favorite person or painter lived in Rome, you could visit locations or neighborhoods that were significant to that person.

Like movies? Like any movies set in Rome? There are all sorts of websites that list where various movies were filmed. I haven't done that in Rome, but our family has done that in New York, and my film-buff son really enjoyed it. This kind of quest would lead you to parts of the city that you might not get to otherwise.

I really like mosaics; on one trip, we tried to visit every church in Rome that had mosaics. Or you could try to view every obelisk in Rome (google it; people have made lists of their locations). Or visit 10 different gelaterias and decide which you like best.

Walk or bike or run down the Appian Way.

In terms of doing something other than looking, are you a runner? I am, and running up to the front of St. Peter's early in the morning, and around Piazza Navona, are favorite memories. I've alway through it would be fun to run around the Circus Maximus (which is now a park).

Enjoy!

How about this...

http://www.romeing.it/tram-jazz-rome/

Context Tours does the most amazing food tours. We did the one for snack food (coffee, handmade chocolates, forno, etc). The guide was a delight and gave us information on different restaurants for the rest of our trip. They were wonderful and we were the only foreigners in them. She also does a dinner where she explains everything and helps with the wine (she was studying for her somelier certification).
Also, check for activities or exhibits. We were lucky enough to stumble upon the Vatican's exhibition of documents that hadn't been made public in centuries, but I found it online while we were still home and purchased the tickets before we went. We saw documents signed by some of the Greats of history (Henry the Eighth, Galleleo....)

The Scavi tour is also remarkable. It takes you under the Vatican to see what was built there before. You see St Peter's bones, and all the Popes' caskets (I can't remember the real name right now). You must write to the Vatican and request a day and time. They only allow 200 people a day to do this.
Go to the morning farmer's market on the Piazza (again I can't remember the name, but the statue in the Assasin's Creed game is there).
If I remember any others I will add them. But all of these were AMAZING experiences.

I'll second Lo's ideas for a food tour and a dinner experience with locals. Besides seeing many of the "must-see" sights, these were two of my favorite experiences in Rome. I went on a food tour in Trastevere with Eating Italy; the food was delicious, the guide excellent, and it was great to meet people from all over the world on the tour. Similarly, I also had dinner at Federica and Barbara's through EatWith, and it was a fabulous dinner party of folks from all over and some locals, friends of the hosts. These experiences are some of my fondest memories of my trips to Rome. Whatever you decide, hope you have a great trip!

I LOVE THE PICKPOCKET IDEA!!!!!!!!!!! That just won the internet.

Lol, back in my 20s I "dressed up" one night, my husband and I went to one of Rome's popular ho tracks (I thought I should show him one for the experience), I stood at the bus stop and he "picked me up." Then we left laughing to death, he had my jeans and t-shirt in his backpack, I changed a few blocks away, and we went for gelato at one of my favorite places since I was a kid and then I showed him Ponte Milvio (back when the lovers locks were all the rage) just because we weren't too far away. For the record I mention this because it wasn't some kink thing, he too wanted to do something "unique" So I guess you could see a one of those for the experience. I never thought of them as "unique" since I thought they existed everywhere and then I went to England where so many towns don't have these.....I guess what is unique depends on where you're from.

Many people say the San Lorenzo area is dangerous, but to me it's an amazing neighborhood to eat all the food and meet people, so talking to people you'll often find yourself going off on adventures. Plus the food. I can't stress the food enough.

You'll probably be seeing the ruins at Largo Argentina anyway since they're in the center of everything and sometimes there are free tours of them, but most importantly it's an open cat shelter where they sterilize the animals left there and let them roam free + let you adopt them. There's nothing like playing with cats amidst wonderful ruins to make for a wonderful day and it's not every city you can snuggle kittens where Julius Caesar was killed.

You'll probably want to visit a catacomb and my personal favorite is St. Priscilla because of the knowledgeable nuns and Villa Ada is beautiful and right there too. Just above it is Rome's Grand Mosque, which is the largest one outside the Islamic world and worth seeing plus not something that pops to mind when you think "Rome."

Since shopping carts are something you put a coin in and they don't tend to lock when leaving the store you can always borrow some for nighttime shopping cart races (I recommend doing this outside the center to be safe and fair to traffic), which I used to LOVE when I lived there because of the topography. It shouldn't be hard to find friends who want to join you!

If you're musical, jamming with street musicians could be fun too.

Sorry, the daytime is not my most creative time, but if anything pickpocket fun comes to me I will come back and post it here :) I like this question.

Learn the bus system--maybe just a little bit of knowledge will suffice because it can be confounding--get a pass and ride around, from one end of Roma to another. Better yet, at Termini station (or tabacchi shops) they sell a laminated Rome bus route map, which helped immensely. The non-touristy neighborhoods are wonderful--like anyplace else I suppose but definitely with a Roman flair.

We had friends that were staying in an apartment up north of Porta Pia on via Nomentana, and that area was simply people doing their business of the day, and we grooved in that. Visited wonderful churches like St. Agnese and St. Costantia, ate Puglian cuisine and also visited Villa Torlonia, where Mussolini's wartime mansion was somewhat in disrepair. Fascinating!

And although we were never approached in 15-20 rides over a week, the buses may be fairly crowded and you may be able to put the faux-wallet, fool-the-pickpocket plan into effect. Why that sounds like fun I don't know, but if you ride the buses you definitely want to keep your valuables in deep storage.

Here's another vote for Barbara and Federica's eatwith.com dinner in Trastevere. A highlight of our last trip and sure to be part of future trips.

Here's a couple of more thoughts. On our last trip to Rome with RS, we were lodged in a hotel in the Trastevere area. Just strolling the streets in this area was a great way to get the feeling of being a Roman native. It is a hip vibrant area that is within walking distance to the Vatican and yet you are a bit away on the "other side of the Tiber". We very much enjoyed staying there where we took part in a free to the public concert. We arrived a couple of days before our tour was to start and to help with jet lag, and to see a part of the city that we had not seen on our previous visit we decided to get out and walk. But rather than just ramble we followed Robert Langdon's route as he raced to beat the Illuminati on the Path of Illumination in Dan Brown's novel Angels and Demons. It took us to four locations looking for Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. It was a fun "scavenger" hunt that made the exercise fun! My third thought is to visit the Capuchin Crypt to view the artwork that is the bones of Monks. It is located under the Santa Maria della Immacolata Concezione dei Cappuccino church.
Just some activities that we enjoyed in Rome. Enjoy!