We travelled to Rome in July 2022. It was the second stop on our month-long honeymoon. Do we recommend going during a heat wave in peak tourist season? Not really. Did we still enjoy ourselves? Of course! We fit in as much as we could during our short visit, while leaving time to explore.
If you’re willing to walk, you can get around to most of the touristy places in Rome. However, we took the metro a few times as we stayed near Vatican City. Is this the most central place to stay? No. But we wanted an AirBNB, and the ones near the main tourist spots (Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon) were quite pricey. We also wanted to be near the Celiachiamo Lab grocery store to find gluten free breakfast options to eat at said AirBNB. Anyways, you may want to research more central areas to say than near the Vatican, but it was still easy enough to get around with the metro and relatively quiet for being in a major city.
This was Suzanne’s first time in Rome, and Ahmed hadn’t been since he was a teenager, so we wanted to hit the main attractions. To us, the do not miss places are: Vatican city, Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and walking around past the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon. Many places have tickets you can book in advance that have specific entry times and/or skip-the-line passes. In some instances, these are well worth it, and in others, not so much. We have included a map at the end to help visualize your itinerary. If you want to see where we ate during our stay, check out our Gluten Free Guide.
Here’s what we did during our 3 days (4 nights) in Rome:
Arrival Day: Arrival and exploring.
Day 1: Vatican and Colosseum.
Day 2: Roman Forum & Palatine Hill, Trevi Fountain, Vicus Caprarius, and Pantheon.
Day 3: Borghese Gallery & Museum, Villa Borghese Gardens, and Spanish Steps.
Departure Day: Departure.
Note: We don’t necessarily recommend doing the Vatican and Colosseum in the same day, as it is a lot. However, we waited last minute to book tickets and didn’t have much other choice. A better choice could be to do the Colosseum and Roman Forum on the same day, as many tours put them together anyways.
DETAILS
Arrival Day:
Arrival day! We arrived at the Termini train station, but you may be arriving at the airport. Find your way to and check into your accommodations (for us, this was an AirBNB). It will probably be a bit of a trek from either the train station or the airport, so especially if you arrive in the afternoon, we don’t recommend planning anything requiring pre-booked tickets on this day. Instead, use your time to explore the neighbourhood you’re staying in! For us, this was the Vatican City area, where we checked out Le Altre Farine gluten free bakery (a must if you are a fellow gluten free traveller!). For you, this could mean wandering past Trevi Fountain and/or Spanish Steps if you have lots of time or are staying in those areas.
DAY 1:
Get up early and get a good breakfast, you’ll be walking a lot today! We’re starting early for an early morning tour of the Vatican Museum! We did the “Pristine Sistine” by Walks of Italy, which started at 7:15am, was about 4 hours long, and was a small-group tour. You do need to book ahead of time. Going this early meant much fewer people inside the Vatican (ie. Less crowds!). Our tour guide was an archaeologist and was phenomenal! Highly recommend. While at the Vatican, you’ll visit the Sistine Chapel. You cannot take photos here or talk while inside!
After you see the Vatican, you’ll make your way to St. Peter’s Basilica. The nice thing is, if you’ve gone on a Vatican tour, you don’t wait in line for the basilica. The basilica was jaw-dropping. It was much bigger than expected, and so opulent. Beautiful! We both highly recommend this tour and seeing both Vatican City and St. Peter’s Basilica even if you are not religious. Don’t forget to cover your arms and legs in the basilica.
If you follow the order we did things, you will now have the afternoon to explore (or nap after your early morning!).
This evening, you will do your Colosseum Night Tour! (Make sure you get dinner before you head to the Colosseum). This tour must be booked in advance. We used “Get Your Guide” to book, and the providing tour operator was “Italy with Family”. Our tour included the arena floor and underground, and the only other people there were other night tours. We chose the night tour because the only other tours or ticket times left when we booked were in the mid-afternoon July heat. No, thanks! The perk ended up being that since it was July and the tour started at 7:00pm, it was still light out, but not hot. We also ended up getting some cool sunset light at the end of the tour where the Colosseum was lit up by the moon and strategically placed lights. We really enjoyed the night tour and would easily recommend this if you’re not set on doing the Colosseum and Roman Forum together. Whatever you choose to book, book tickets in advance! They sell out quickly.
DAY 2:
Start your day at the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, which opens at 9:00am. The tour groups tend to start coming through at about 10:00am after they’ve completed the Colosseum, so if you want to beat the crowds, get there right at 9:00! This whole area was way bigger than we expected, and it took much longer than we thought we would. Also, very little shade. So, if you’re going on a hot day, bring water and wear your sunscreen. You can buy tickets on their official website in advance, get access through a tour, or buy tickets there. We bought in advance, but there was no line when we arrived at 9:00, so probably wasn’t necessary.
Once you’re done at the Roman Forum, do a little self-guided walk through Rome. You could always join a walking tour if you wanted, but we wanted something less structured, so we did it ourselves. On our walk, we checked out the Pantheon and then headed to the Trevi Fountain. You can get tickets and go inside the Pantheon, but we didn’t opt for that. After the Trevi Fountain, we went around the corner to Vicus Caprarius (closed Mondays), which is a tiny museum of the remains of an aqueduct underneath the fountain! We found this on Kaci Rose’s recommendations, and it was neat, but smaller than we expected.
DAY 3:
Today you’ll visit the Borghese Gallery and Museum. When we visited, you had to book tickets through their official site ahead of time with a 2-hour timeslot. They shoo everyone out at the end of your time, so you do only have 2 hours. This gallery was mostly sculptures and statues, but they were beautiful. We really enjoyed it.
Once you’re done with the gallery and museum, you can explore the Villa Borghese Gardens, which is a giant urban park with a lake and “gardens”. Lots of locals were running and spending time with family here. However, we didn’t really get much of a garden feel. This could be because it was very brown, mostly grass and trees, or because we live in Canada and so we are very spoiled when it comes to gardens.
Once you’re done with the Borghese area, you can make your way to the Spanish Steps (these were very busy when we visited). You can’t sit on the steps, but there are coffee shops and gelato shops in the area where you can grab something and wander around the area. You can use the rest of your afternoon (and any energy you have left) to explore or visit any sites that weren’t included in our itinerary that you want to see.
Departure Day:
This will be the day you depart, or if you’ve chosen to extend your stay in Rome, perhaps you’re taking a day trip, or checking out more of Rome (there is plenty more to do and see!). If you’re leaving Rome, we hope you enjoyed your stay.
We hope you enjoyed our “3 Days in Rome” itinerary!
HOW TO USE THE MAP: Click on the Wanderlog logo in the bottom right corner to open the full-size map up in a new tab. There, you can choose to just look at one day at a time or see all of the days on the map at once (click the 3 squares in the top right to choose). You can also export the map to Google Maps, share the map with others, or save the map.