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Rome – Don’t just throw your money away.
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To all you backpackers out there hoping to do this cheaply – sorry, but Rome is expensive. The fact is, you will end up forking out more for your stay in Rome than you will for most other cities in Europe, and you should budget accordingly for this. Ultimately, if you want to make the most out of your trip to Rome, you should be prepared to spend money on entrance fees and food. Rome is one of the most – if not the most – spectacular cities in Europe, the kind of city that will have you walking around in a kind of trance, being unable to believe what you are seeing. So, firstly, everything you’ve heard about the “must-sees” of Rome is true. We’re not going to go into what you should see if you’re avoiding the main sites of Rome to save money – there’s no point going if you’re not going to see the Coliseum and St Peter’s Basilica and all the rest of it. It’s worth every penny, believe us. And the second most important thing that it’s worth spending money on is, of course, food. Dining in Rome is such an important part of the culture – they do it for hours and hours on end – and there’s just no point in being there if you’re just going to grab a burger from McDonald’s.
That said, there are ways to avoid just throwing your money down the drain, and only spending it on the things that really are necessary. So, below you’ll find a series of tips for the most cost-effective transport; restaurants where the food is plentiful, delicious and good value; bars where you’re not paying 25 Euros per cocktail, and general advice on how to save money and make the most of your trip. We hope you find it useful.
Transport
The Rome public transport system is a god-send for those on a budget, because it’s pretty cheap, pretty easy to navigate and pretty extensive. It also does away with the need for taxis, which should save you quite a lot of cash. Here are some suggestions that might be useful:
Getting from the airport into the city
Depends which airport you fly into, but if you fly into the Leonardo da Vinci airport (otherwise known as Fiumicino), your best option is to get the Leonardo Express straight from the airport into Termini station in the centre of Rome. This costs about 11 Euros and takes about half an hour – they run every 30 minutes. From Termini you can make your way to your hotel/hostel, whether it’s by taxi, metro or shank’s pony.
If you fly into Ciampino airport (to which Ryanair flies) then there are several buses that you can catch. There’s the Cotral Bus which goes from the airport to Ciampino train station, where you can get the train to Termini station. If you want to get a bus all the way, you can try the Terravision bus which goes to Termini station, and tends to coincide nicely with the Ryanair flights. It takes about 40 minutes and costs around 10 Euros.
Warning: The taxi drivers that hang out in Termini station and within the airports themselves are NOT official taxis, no matter what they tell you, and they will, without a doubt, rip you off. If you walk outside the station/airport, you’ll see a row of yellow or white cabs – and they will look like official cabs – and they are metered and regulated. You’ll get a fair deal from them. The taxi should cost about 45 Euros from the airports to the centre.
Getting Around the City – Metro & Buses
Hallelujah, the public transport system in Rome is surprisingly good.
The metro takes you to just about all the tourist sites that you need to go to, and it’s really easy to navigate. It has only two lines – the orange and the blue – and they cross at Termini. The blue line will take you through such sites as the Coliseum and San Paulo, and the orange line runs through the Vatican Museum, St Peter’s Basilica, the Spanish Steps, San Giovanni, Appian Way and the Catacombs. They run from 5.30am to 11.30pm (and 00.30 on Saturdays), so if you stay out all night you can get the first metro home.
The bus system is good too, and the list of places the bus is heading to will be listed at the bus stop. The names will be in Italian, but I’m sure you can figure it out. The buses also have an extra plus, which is that some of them are night buses, and these buses have a little owl on the front of them next to the bus number. Sometimes they take a slightly different route than their daytimes equivalents, but you can always ask the driver when you get on.
Here’s the brilliant part – the tickets for the buses and metros are interchangeable. This can save so much time and confusion, and you can even go one better, and get tickets that last longer than one journey. Here’s the breakdown:
A single ticket (lasting 75 minutes) – 1 Euro
A day ticket (lasting 24 hours) – 4 Euros
A three-day ticket (lasting 72 hours) – 11 Euros
A seven-day ticket (lasting... a week) – 16 Euros
So you can see that if you’re staying for a while and plan on charging about the city a lot, these tickets can help. You can even get a month one for about 30 Euros, if you’re going to be hanging around Rome for a while. Tickets for the buses and metros are obviously available from the ticket machines in the stations, but on the chance that they’re broken or you just can’t be bothered to wait in the queues that form around rush hour, you can also get them from newsagents and newspaper stands nearby.
Warning: You MUST validate your tickets BEFORE you get on the metro. There are little stamping machines before you reach the platforms, and if you are caught without a validated ticket, you will be fined. Which is rubbish.
Restaurants
Mmm, Roman food. The Italians know what they’re doing when it comes to cuisine. Your stay in Rome will be a deliciously carbohydrate-filled one, with masses of pasta and pizza and gallons of wine. Oh, and don’t forget the gelati. That’s ice-cream to you and me, and believe me, it’s wonderful. And since you’ll be striding around the city all day, you’ll deserve it.
The downside is that there are plenty of not-so-good restaurants around, particularly surrounding tourist attractions, and plenty more that are good enough, but staggeringly expensive. To avoid this pitfall, read on for our suggestions of restaurants that serve delicious food at reasonable prices. It’s worth splashing out on good meals here.
- Vecchia Roma – Small, friendly family restaurant, which produces pretty cheap, delicious food, and loads of it. This place is always packed, mostly with locals, which is always a good sign. You’ll find it at Via Ferruccio 12c, near Termini and Coliseum. Give them a call to book a table: 06/4467143.
- Entoca Corsi – good place for lunch, very small and good value. Tends to be always absolutely packed, so service is brisk but not unfriendly. The menu changes all the time. It’s at Via del Gesu 87/88, not far from the Pantheon, and you can call to book on 06/6790821.
- Pizzeria Montebello – There’s lots of pizza in Rome, some of it better than others, but this one is huge pizza at great prices that tastes fabulous. It’s proper, authentic Italian pizza. It’s near Termini station, in a very touristy area, but there’s a good mix of tourists and locals here. The address is Via Montebello 27.
- Ristorante der Pallardo – This place is all about rocking up and eating whatever they happen to be cooking. You can guarantee it’ll be good, solid Italian food, and if you’re veggie, just let them know. You get about 4 courses, wine, water and juice, all for about 20 Euros. Bargain. You should call them to book a table on 06 6880 1488, and the address is Largo del Pallaro 15.
- Trattoria di Antonio Bassetti – once a hidden gem, now just a gem. This used to be Rome’s best secret, but it was discovered and now it is popular with tourists. Fortunately, the things that make this place fabulous are still there – great service and great food at great prices. Long may it last. The address is Governo Vecchio 18/19, just off Piazza Navona.
Warning: DO NOT eat anything around the Vatican. There are plenty of lovely looking restaurants with very charming staff outside to pull you in to eat, but the wait staff will be rude and expecting huge tips anyway (thank you, USA, for passing that aspect of your culture on to countries who don’t give service worth tipping), the food will be mediocre at best and the prices will make you choke on your espresso. Not worth it – don’t fall for it.
Nightlife
Roman nightlife is not what you find in the UK, USA or Australia. Continental nightlife is much more civilised and chilled out in general. A social evening is much more likely to revolve around a meal that continues late into the night with conversation with friends over plenty of wine and glasses of lemoncello than all night piss-ups at clubs. Most restaurants stay open until the last person has left for this very purpose. However, if loud and drunken nightlife is what you need, here are a few suggestions for you:
- The most famous club area is Testaccio. It’s a collection of bars and clubs set away from the main residential areas of Rome, where the head-pounding bass and sound of the youth of today vomiting up their dinner over a bridge won’t disturb the locals. The place gets busy – the car parks are jammed with scooters and smart cars, the queues are horrendous and many oversized, evil bouncers oversee the chaos. But if you want a loud, clubby night, this is the area to be in.
- Amnesia – One of Rome’s most famous clubs, with glass floors. Not cheap, but a bit of a novelty and a very cool atmosphere.
- Ice Club – Another novelty bar, but a bit more extreme – Ice Bar does exactly what it says on the tin: everything is made out of ice! Don’t worry, there are wraps provided so you don’t get frostbite while you’re drinking your pint. You’ll find this one on Via Della Madonna Dei Monti.
- SupperClub – This is a bit of a love-it-or-hate-it one. If you like gimmicks, you’ll probably appreciate Rome’s version of the international chain bar. It’s hidden down an alley in a converted third century mansion at Via de’Nari 14, with no doorman outside and no sign on the door. This has gone some way to keeping the potential tackiness of this place down, but there will always be people who sneer at places like this. It’s very artsy-cum-trendy, with a mass of veiled curtains draped around and comfy white beds to recline on, drink in, eat in... Oh, and the wait staff massage you as you relax. It’s a very sultry and luxurious, but cheap it certainly ain’t. Be prepared to pay a lot for the atmosphere.
- Campo de Fiori – Back to the real world, where the young, drunken, cheerful types hang out. By day, campo de Fiori is a famous flower market – by night, the stalls are cleared away, the benches are brought out and the place is filled with a noisy mix of young Roman students and international backpackers, all happily chatting away and getting steadily hammered. This place has a great atmosphere, and it is nice place to meet people, but anyone over the age of about 25 might suddenly realise how old they really are.
- Alpheus – One of Rome’s biggest nightclubs, with four main rooms. You’ll find this one on Via del Commercio 36. From Thursday to Sunday they play different styles of music, whereas the rest of the week has various gigs going on.
- Bar San Callista – and one for the more chilled out drinkers among you: This place is in the Piazza San Callista, and it spills out to fill up the small piazza in the evenings. It’s pretty quiet during the day, but the night time tends to fill it up. It’s very relaxed and unpretentious, which is probably what you want at this point.
Money saving tips:
- Quite an important one, this – you’ll see loads of stalls and carts around with drinks and snacks for sale. Avoid them like the plague – Rome is expensive, but not this expensive. Head for the minimarkets and grocery stores instead, where a large bottle of water can cost about 0.25 Euro. Far better than the 1.50 Euros that it can cost. You can also fill up your bottles up at the numerous fountains around the city. Hey, when in Rome...
- There are billions of souvenir stalls knocking around Rome, and they all sell the same stuff. Do not make the mistake of buying stuff at the first stall you see when you can haggle the price down with the fantastic phrase, “Well, that guy over there offered it for 5 Euros, not 10”.
 Rome is popular, and sooner or later you’ll end up waiting in a queue for something or other. Don’t let line for the Coliseum be one of them. Instead, go over to the ticket booth for the nearby Palatine Hill, where you can buy a ticket for both. There’s almost never a line here, so you can save heaps of time. - Don’t buy anything near the Vatican. The souvenir prices double. It’s ridiculous.
- If you’re a backpacker you should already know the drill, but just in case you don’t – if you see people dressed as Roman soldiers/princesses etc offering to have photos taken with them, they OBVIOUSLY are going to expect you to pay. 5 dollars, in fact. Maybe more.
- Hop On-Hop Off buses sound like a really great idea, but actually because so many other people also think they are a great idea, it’s often hard to get on them. They just fill straight up. Stick to the metro and walking.
- A great Rome deal is the Roma Pass. This is a 20 Euro ticket that will get you admission to two main sites and unlimited metro and bus transport for 3 days, useful if you are around for a few days. Many sites are already over 10 Euros, so that’s money saved in the first place. Then you can abuse the public transport system to your heart’s content. You can buy them at Palatine Hill as well, or at tobacco stands.
- Borghese Gardens surrounding the Borghese Galleries are peaceful and a nice break from the craziness of Rome. You could do a nice picnic here if you wanted to avoid the restaurants.
General Tips
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