Visiting Ancient Rome truly deserves an entire day on your itinerary. Some tourists may try to squeeze it into a few hours, but they’re not doing themselves justice. Sure, they may capture a photo to share on Facebook, but is that why we travel? To just brag about it online? Hardly. Ancient Rome is about the experience. It’s about touring buildings that are thousands of years old, walking in the footsteps of saints and philosophical thought leaders, and standing where warriors battled for pride and life. Only a few hours in Ancient Rome is like going to Caesar’s Palace Vegas and claiming you saw the real Forum (you didn’t).
While we enjoyed our day in Ancient Rome, returning to our hotel completely exhausted, we made several mistakes. Read below and don’t make the same mistakes we made.
The Colleseum
We began our day at The Colleseum. All the guidebooks said to get their early if you weren’t doing a “skip the lines” tour. If getting there early wasn’t an option, then they suggested buying tickets to The Colleseum at Palatine Hill. A ticket includes admission to the Forum, Palatine Hill, or Colleseum and can be bought at any of the three attractions. Palatine Hill happens to have the shortest line for tickets. Once you arrive at The Colleseum, you then have access to a much smaller line for people who already purchased tickets. Confused? Don’t worry, I’ll summarize all options in the tips below.
The Gourmands in The Colleseum
We opted to arrive an hour early at The Colleseum to purchase our tickets. After all, we were in Rome before the busy summer tourist season was in full swing. BIG MISTAKE!!! The line was already two hours long when we arrived. Even worse, there was absolutely not rhyme or reason to the line. We spent two hours bumping elbows and fighting for our turn to purchase an entrance ticket.
Once inside the crowd does spread out somewhat as The Colleseum is huge. We rented the audio tour guides to enhance our experience beyond just another photo opportunity. We also spent two hours perusing The Colleseum Museum which at the time housed an exhibit dedicated to Constantine the Great, Rome’s first Christian emperor. The exhibit brought new life to the experience.
Travel Tip: Below are three options for visiting the three main sites of Ancient Rome: 1. Arrive early to purchase your tickets at the Colleseum and then proceed into The Colleseum on your tour. 2. Buy your tickets at Palatine Hill and then tour both Palatine Hill and the Forum first, hitting The Colleseum at the end of the day. All popular attractions seem to have smaller crowds at the end of the day. 3. Opt for a Skip the Line Tour from Dark Rome. Or, spend the extra dollars and for the extended tour taking you under the Colleseum where the warriors, lions, and tigers were held before battle and up to the third tier. Neither of which are available without an organized tour.
Travel Tip: If you aren’t doing an organized tour like the ones mentioned about, spend the extra dollars to rent the audio guide so you know what you actually paid to see or download some of Rick Steve’s audio guides.
After The Colleseum, we were famished and went for what we thought was a small lunch at Trattoria Melo, a nearby restaurant specializing in Southern Italian food. Yeah right. What we thought was an overpriced half carafe of wine turned out to be an entire carafe. For lunch. Opps. Oh well, after a morning of crowd fighting, more than a little indulgence was earned. I ordered Pasta Amatriciana which was laced with generous amounts of pancetta and prosciutto to fill my belly and a good amount of red pepper kick to help polish off the wine. Of course, the pasta was handmade. I shouldn’t even need to say that about a restaurant in Italy. If the pasta isn’t homemade, then consider eating elsewhere.
Trattoria Melo – Rome, Italy
Since there was still plenty of wine in our carafe after lunch, we ordered dessert. I had a cannoli bigger than my arm. Think about the best cannoli you ever ate (like Mike’s Pastry in Boston). Then think better. It was that good. Just as we were ready to stumble out of the restaurant and head to the forum, the waiter brought us complimentary glasses of lemoncello. Yikes! Hiking around ancient ruins was about to get dangerous.
Travel Tip: Eat at Trattoria Melo. You won’t be disapoointed.
Mamertine Prison
More than a little buzzed, we visited the Mamertine Prison at the foot of the Capitoline Hill where Saint Peter and Saint Paul were imprisoned prior to their martyrdoms. RIP OFF ALERT!!! This was our second mistake of the day. The audio presentation was good, but there wasn’t much to look at in just two rooms, one of which contains the spring Saint Peter created to baptize others imprisoned with him. I felt that such a significant moment in the Christian faith was exploited for tourist dollars. I wanted to be taken back to when Paul wrote his last letter, Timothy 2. I wanted to picture him shackled as he poured his soul onto scrolls that would make up large parts of the Bible. I wanted a religious pilgrimage experience. But it was just a bunch of iTunes downloads.
Mamertine Prison – All There is to See
Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum
Next we got lost in The Roman Forum which is connected to Palatine Hill. You have to get lost in the forum wandering the dilapidated structures and imagining what the site looked like in its heyday. But do it smarter than we did. We did not opt for any audio guides but instead used our Rome Day by Day Guide book to navigate the ancient streets, buildings, and temples. We spent most of the time trying to figure out if what we were looking at fit the description in our book which made the experience more of a scavenger hunt than it needed to be. Others around us downloaded Rick Steve’s guides and had a much richer experience.
Travel Tip – Before any European adventure, reference Rick Steve’s and see if he has downloadable audio tours for your smart phone or iPad.
And that’s all I’m going to say about Ancient Rome. Instead, I want to tease you with these photos from the Colleseum and The Roman Forum.
Speaking of Photos. Are we connected on Instagram? If not, lets connect! I leave for a safari in Africa today and will be posting pics along the way under #GourmandsInAfrica! Follow the adventure!
What did you like most about Ancient Rome?
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