Rome in late August and early Steptember need tips and tricks

Watch Ricks Steves Rome episode It is an hour of info.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_eKW03SC5w

you can pause it and take notes on what you are interested in seeing.
Buy https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/rome-guidebook or Pick up one of his guide books hopefully available at your local library. In the guidebooks and in the video he will give you an idea on where to eat and stay based on your budget. It will be hot so pack like you are going to Florida in the summer. Also this is all covered organized in the guide book,

Hi Carolyn -
Besides guidebooks and the episode linked below, just take a quick spin through previous posts in the Italy forum? Many of the questions you're asking have been asked many times before so you'll find it a wealth of great information!

After you've done some reading, come back with some specific questions about the attractions, restaurants, etc. you're interested in and we can fill you in. :O)

You'll need a good guidebook to bring along anyway so those should be your #1 resources to start with: hit your local bookshop and library. Of course Rick Steves' will be the most recommended guide on this site but take a look at Eyewitness, Frommer's and anything else you might be able to check out, just to get going.

Hey Katy and Jazz,

I have read so much information over the past week that I have no idea where to start and that my head is on over load! Here are a few questions I have. Where is a good place to buy wine? Any places you suggest to do wine tasting. Is the Skip the line worth it for the Vatican? What about a bus tour for Pompeii? Any shops you liked for clothes, shoes, and souvenir? Any local places you liked to eat that we not too expensive but good.

Carolyn , my tip is this , it will be so hot you will melt . Plan "hot"sites for mornings , as early as they open . Coliseum and Forum ( so little shade ) and Vatican ( the crowds inside can be suffocating and no ac ) .
Don't eat anywhere near St Peters Square either , overpriced and I got sonsick there I lost an entire day of my trip !

Where is a good place to buy wine

Can't help you with that one, sorry. We only drink wine with dinner, and then only the house wines: generally much better than house wines here and inexpensive besides! We also don't go wine-tasting in Italy so hopefully someone else can fill you in. You won't have any trouble finding plenty, though.

Is the Skip the line worth it for the Vatican?

YES. I wouldn't even think of going to the Vatican museums without pre-purchasing tickets or a tour. The place is VAST, and ticket lines are long. Order tickets or reserve a tour from the website below; these are the most economical, and they hit the highlights.

http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en.html

The basilica is free but you can also combine that one with a tour of the museums. The gardens, necropolis and some other parts can only be seen be visited on separate tours....which we haven chosen not to do (so far). Expect the museums to be uncomfortably crowded.

Any shops you liked for clothes, shoes, and souvenir?

Nope, I don't really shop. Too many other fun things to spend the time and $$ on! :O)

Any local places you liked to eat that we not too expensive but good.

Here are some recommendations from the gang:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/rome-restaurants-8f3d5879-8a16-48ad-a147-a859c6fb393c

There are some in this thread as well:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/favorite-meal-in

Wine-- Like Kathy I just order the house red. Never had a regret and saved $$ too!

Restaurants-- Have let the RS book be our dinner guide. Have eaten well on both trips to Rome.

Souvenirs-- Minimalist approach here, but always get a few things--- had no problem finding a place to shop.

Clothes-- If you plan to visit churches you need clothing to the knees ( women) and cover over your shoulders Men need long pants (zip off legs are great). Otherwise just plan for WARM weather. If you do not bring a small folding umbrella for the random rain squall, its easy to get one there if the need arises.
Check out the RS "packing guide"- I have done 4 weeks with a 21" roller bag and small back pack. The RS clothesline is one of the best buys we have ever made.( No, I am not on the payroll!)

Another vote for house wine. Didn't realize until our return from last month's trip to Rome and Sorrento that we didn't order a single bottle of wine, mostly half-carafes of the house, generally for under 8 Euro (sometimes as low as 5) and they were very good. It was our mission on this trip to dine economically without sacrificing quality, and we did well. Our last night in Sorrento, at a decent but touristy trattoria, I suspected the house bianco was watered down, but that was the only one.

What about a bus tour for Pompeii?

Oops, forgot to weigh in that this one. Personally I think it's a long trip from Rome when there are so many other things to see in or nearer the city itself. A good substitute is Ostia Antica as it's much closer, and you can get there on a couple of cheap BIT tickets or inexpensive (€ 7,00) 24-hr transit pass. No tour needed. Pompeii, IMHO, is best combined with trips which include stays in Sorrento, the Amalfi Coast and/or Naples.

7 nights gives you 6.5 days and you shouldn't any any trouble filling that time. The heat at the end of August/beginning of Sept. will be a factor and you'll manage it better by not overloading your agenda. Pompeii is a huge site with almost no shade so spring or later in the fall is a better time to do that one. I'd also do it by train instead of a bus tour as time spent in transport would be quite a bit less: most road tours I'm seeing involve a 3 to 3.5 hr. ride each way: too much time that could otherwise be spent sightseeing.

Hey Kathy thanks again for your feedback we are planning on doing Ostia and hopefully Pompeii so we will have 5.5 days in Rome.

Where to buy wine? If you mean by the bottle "to go" any grocery store will have a reasonable selection. If you want something special, Trimani near Termini, Cul de Sac (a restaurant with an amazing list) near Piazza Navona, Cavour 313 on Via Cavour, Il Piccolo west of P.za Navona on Via del Governo Vecchio.

Shops: Rome is a warren of small shops. Via Nazionale is a popular shopping street as is Cola di Rienzo near the Vatican. The Monte neighborhood (near the Colosseum) has a lot of artisanal boutiques. Fun to wander there.

Termini area is a good place to stay. There is a major metro station, bus stop and taxi stand nearby to get to other points in Rome. And there are lots of places to eat in the area.

I second the suggestion for zip-off pants. August will be stifling, so it is nice to be in shorts. But you need long pants to enter churches.

There are almost 10,000 places to eat listed in Tripadvisor. I would not be fussed about traipsing all over Rome in the heat looking for the "best" pizza or gelato. If you are hungry or thirsty, just walk a block and find a place and check out the menu/prices and patrons. If it is a bunch of tourists in Aloha shirts and shorts, you may want to pass. If it's a bunch of loud Italians dressed in black jeans on a hot day, it is probably a local favourite.

Same thing with wine. You can easily find a store every couple of streets seiing wine.

Pre-buying admissions is very important to avoid standing in long line-ups in the blazing sun. Some attractions like the Borghese Gallery will sell out, so you should buy weeks/months in advance. For the Vatican, consider doing a Friday night tour. It is in the evening with limited admissions so the heat and crowd is a bit less. You can buy the basic admission or pay a few dollars more for the official guided tour (informative), much cheaper than third party tour guides.

I second that The skip the line at the Vatican is worth it especially if you get one with a guided tour that allows you to skip the line to enter St Peters Basilica.

It is a great walking city so pop in to wherever you see something that you want to buy.
The wine quality for the price is good no matter where you buy it at a grocery store or convenience store.
I like reds so I bought a couple and just drank em over time at the hotel.
And whenever I went out to dinner I drank house wine all good.

Restaurants avoid any where there is someone outside trying to pull you in

Okay, I will chime in...Rome is hot hot hot in August...like Arizona on fire hot. Super dry and sizzling...if you can stay somewhere with a pool such as " The Hotel Building" near the central station...and when in Rome, see sights early, eat lunch then take the afternoon rest and then go out again refreshed in late afternoon, evening..

It also is a lot of time for one place. You cold choose to stay in Florence 2 nights at a hotel with a pool like the Palace Park or another...this is a beautiful walkable city...busy with tourists but not as crazy as a week in Rome...other options of course if Rome is your purpose, stay in Ostia for 2 nights at the very end of the trip...so you go back home truly relaxed...it is easy to reach the airport from Ostia.

** Rick's books and Knopf city guide with fold out map for each part of town work great for me all over the world! Enjoy! I will be there about 3 weeks later! :) ( visiting my aunt)

Enjoy!

Wine-tasting in Rome - I highly recommend this place: http://www.vinoroma.com/

Did it in May 2015 and learned TONS about wine.

Also, when ordering the house wine in Italy, it can be ordered in half (mezzo) or quarter (quarto), but that means half a LITER, or a quarter of a liter - NOT half a BOTTLE or a quarter of a bottle. A standard wine bottle is 0.75 liters. This means that a quarto is actually 0.25 liters, or 1/3 of a bottle.

P.S. I do not recommend Pompeii that time of year..it is extremely spread out and very hot in the open...if you are going to see an archelogical site ( aside from all the ones in Rome itself) go to Herculaneum..it is smaller, much better preserved and has some shaded areas and can be seen in 1.5 hours. Then head to the archeological museum in Naples and see what was salvaged from both sites! :) Pompeii is like a small town, Herculaneum seemed like a small neighborhood...I enjoyed it and I sent my friends there on their honeymoon during early Sept. instead of Pompeii and they loved it as it gave them time to do other things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum

Thank you everyone for your suggestions! This will help me a lot! Good thing I am from Texas because i am used to hot weather :) All this information is useful! I wish I had time to go to Florence but my friend wants to go to the Ostia Port and Pompeii so I think we will do that instead of Florence! I can always go back :)

Take a look at Walks of Italy tours of Rome, especially the Vatican and Coliseum. We took three Walks of Italy tours (2 in Florence, 1 in Rome) and were very pleased. The Pristine Sistine and VIP tour of the Coliseum is on our bucket list. You'll get special access and will avoid the crowds.

Walks of Italy is super organized and their guides are very knowledgeable. The group size is kept small. We booked our Florence tours before we left for our trip. We received a packet of information, including a map that showed our meeting point. We were so impressed that we booked the Twilight City Stroll tour of Rome to take the night before we flew home from FCO.

In advance of our trip last month, we bought online Fast Track tickets for St. Peter's, which was basically paying 15 Euro to bypass the line only. There also was a audio phone app they gave us that didn't work. But it served its purpose, saved us over an hour at 11:00 in the morning.

I have been averse to walking tours because of the crowds--even small ones--and the sheeplike mentality, but at St. Peter's & The Vatican it's such sensory overload that maybe it's not a bad choice in the long run.

But Rome at its essence (and why I love it) is about wandering on your own and finding gems--a place to sit and contemplate along the Tiber, a little piazza to have a caffe and people-watch, an off-the-beaten-path museum forgotten by the tourist groups, and finding you have the place to yourself. Can't do that in Florence because it's too concentrated an area.