We are looking at walking tours in Rome in September. My husband occasionally has back problems and is wondering just how strenuous the tours might be, what the pace might be like. Also, 2 days or 3 in Rome?
Thannks
Posted by
Forest Grove, OR
11356 posts
Your second question first: The number of days to spend depends on how much you want to do and see and at what pace. Some of us have spent weeks in Rome -- in my case years! There is an endless opportunity to explore if one desires. I think to decide how many days to spend one has to list out the things one wants to do, and also determine how much of the day you can or want to be active. For example, a good tour of the Vatican Museums and St. Peter's will take about 4 hours. If I do that in the morning, I am ready to have lunch and a good rest, then I would be ready to go out again in late afternoon and evening. Some people can put in a 12 hour day touring and go right on to dinner. Not me nor my husband. Rick Steves has planning advice here for Rome. Worth a read. Hope you also have his guidebook!
Walking tours go at a reasonable pace, in my experience. Are you thinking Colosseo and Forum or where, exactly? Some of the experience is dependent on the size of the group. Inevitably some people move faster and in large groups, people get spread out and may fall behind. In a smaller tour it is less of a problem. A private tour will go at YOUR pace. We do a lot os self-guided tours using Rick's books all over Europe, and we also like the book "24 Great Walks in Rome" to self-guide.
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
15843 posts
We only self tour so I can't answer your first question but I'd say that three days is the minimum for Rome unless you're really not into antiquities and art. I've spent nearly two weeks total in that one over several trips and have yet to come close to running out of things to see!
Posted by
Columbus, USA
396 posts
We took the Eating Italy 'Twilight Trastevere Food Tour' a few weeks ago on our first night in Rome. It was a highlight of our 2 week trip. The food was amazingly good, it was a great introduction to the area, the guide was enthusiastic, and we enjoyed the company of the others on the tour. Trastevere is very picturesque. The pace for this tour is a leisurely walk and I remember it being mostly flat. You nosh and drink wine at various locations as you visit about 7 locations. In several of the locations we were seated. A couple of times we grabbed 'street food' and ate standing up. It was about 3 1/2 hours. One could easily have dropped out of the tour at any point and grabbed a cab.
We also took the Walks of Italy Caesar’s Palace Tour with Colosseum & Roman Forum tour, also 3-4 hours with basically no opportunity to sit. The walking pace of this tour was no faster than moderate, mostly slow. Rome is hilly, or perhaps rather a lot of the ancient sites are on hills, so there is some amount of walking up and down the smallish hills and of course stairs at the Colosseum.
Cabs in Rome are very reasonable, so we used them to save time and reduce the amount of walking. Depending on the time of day/location you may need to walk to a taxi stand to get one, which is normally no more than a few blocks. Frequently we were able to hail a cab from where we were, but if that didn't work we looked for a taxi stand.
Posted by
Dallas, TX, USA
25 posts
We just returned from Turkey and Italy with 4 nights in Rome. If you plan well and buy your admission tickets online so that you are not wasting time waiting in lines, you can easily see the highlights of Rome in 3 days. We did the Borghese, lunch and the nearby catacombs on day 1. The catacombs were nice because it was near 100 and they were very cool. Day 2 was the Coliseum/Forum, start early and get the combo pass. Take water with you and plan at least 4 hours, we used Rick's podcast but consider a good guide and maybe a private tour, they can help mange the pace. Day 3 we did the Vatican, again avoid the long lines. Usually in the afternoons we did something inside as it was hot. We also did the walking night tour in Rick's guide, it's a relatively easy walk especially if you work dinner in. The Pantheon is on this walk but it closes at 1700 so you may want to do this one afternoon, especially if you're staying in the area. We stayed just behind the Piazza Navonna so it was a 5 minute walk. Regarding the strenuous part. All of the streets in Rome are paved with cobbles, wear sturdy shoes. The Forum involves some ups/downs so take that into consideration. Unless the back problems are significant I don't think it should be a problem but only he will know for sure. I was experiencing some lower back pain but I actually felt better when I was active.
Safe Travels!
Keith