Ultimate Rome Travel Guide

Travelling to Rome was the best way to begin my travel adventures with my boyfriend as our first trip away together. Rome is a beautiful city, full of sooo many things to see and it is such a great trip if you’re looking for a city break jam packed with activities. This post is to highlight the best of this city, to make it so much easier for you to plan a trip and give you ideas of where to go.

Click here to see what we got up to in Rome – Rome Travel Diary

Where to Go

The two main places I firstly had in mind that I knew I had to go to see in Rome was the Colosseum and the Vatican. Knowing this, two separate days were dedicated to seeing each one and we fitted in everywhere else we wanted to go based on its vicinity to those locations. I highly recommend visiting the Vatican including St Peter’s Basilica, even if you aren’t religious, you can appreciate the amazing beauty in the decor and art.

Here are the other places that are the best places to visit in Rome;

Trevi Fountain – Best place to go to early in the morning, when it isn’t so busy. One thing we forgot to do was bring coins to throw in over our shoulders to follow the traditions.
Pantheon – It’s one of the best preserved buildings from Ancient Rome, an incredible addition to our wander around the city. We didn’t go inside for very long, as it was really busy and therefore I got better view of the beauty of the building outside.
Palatine Hill – This is one of the most Ancient parts of the city according to Google and in my opinion it is worth the little walk up to the top as you can get the most amazing view of the Colosseum.
Piazza Navona – This Piazza was a perfect little spot where we rested from our explorations and enjoyed our ice creams and got some cute shots of the fountains.
Spanish Steps – Honestly we walked by the steps on our first night when we were strolling the area around our hotel, not realising that we were at the Spanish Steps. The view is really pretty, however again it’s really busy there and there are plenty of other pretty fountain displays nearby that you can take pictures and relax around.
Villa Borghese – If you’re looking to take a little break out of the city have a look to visit here, it’s a really beautiful park. We didn’t stay for long to see the whole park but I saw that they offer a tour of the gardens and there is also a museum.

Where to Eat

Traditional Italian restaurants are all around of course, we were so spoilt for choice. I expected the pizza and the pasta to be amazing and there was certainly no disappointment. For lunch, after we visited the Vatican we went to Maccarone, I ordered ‘Lasagna Di Macaroni Alla Bolognese’ and my boyfriend ordered a pizza. On their menu they have Italian food but also American dishes, if that’s what you fancy. For dinners we wandered and got lost down little streets and found the cutest traditional restaurants which offered big portion meals what were surprisingly inexpensive. There were so many ice cream stores, like Venchi for example, having ice cream every night is this girl’s dream!

Where to Stay

We were super lucky and got a place that was roughly in the middle between the Vatican and the city of Rome, the Hotel was called Hotel Isa. I would highly recommend finding a hotel that is not too far away from the places that you want to visit, walkable distances ideally. My boyfriend and I literally walked everywhere and had no need to order taxis which I imagine would be quite pricey in this area.

This was honestly one of my fav hotels I’ve stayed in! The buffet breakfast every morning was delicious and the roof-top relaxation area where they offered cocktails, little snacks and other drinks was amazing. The staff were so friendly, the waiter at the roof-top bar was the sweetest and remembered our regular orders.